Background
Founded by Alexander Wilson in 1857 as a pump and marine engine manufacturer, Vauxhall was bought by Andrew Betts Brown in 1863.
He renamed the company Vauxhall Iron Works and commenced the manufacture of travelling cranes.
In 1903 the company reverted to its earlier name and started to build highly regarded luxury cars.
Vauxhall’s focus shifted to more mid-market vehicles after its purchase by General Motors in 1925.
The Opel Corsa first appeared in 1982 and was a replacement for GM’s ageing Chevette.
Elsewhere in GM’s global territories, it was also known as the Vauxhall Corsa – but not in the UK, where it was feared that ‘Corsa’ would be confused with ‘coarser’.
No, really.
So, until 1993, the car that the rest of the world knew as the Opel/Vauxhall/Chevrolet ‘Corsa’ or the Holden ‘Barina’ was known to the British as the Vauxhall ‘Nova’.
Common sense prevailed in 1993, the Corsa name was adopted and, by 1998, the Corsa had become the world’s best-selling car, shifting some 910,839 units in that year alone.
The final iteration of the Corsa, manufactured in Mexico as the Chevrolet ‘Chevy’, rolled off the production lines in 2011.







