Spotted...... Holden Barina

[purplebargeken]

In Edmonton this evening, on a Q plate. Metallic brown with the rear lights mounted vertically on the rear pillars. Looked quite smart.

[vulgalour]

When you say Barina, which one do you mean?

[purplebargeken]

Small Corsa sized thing, 5 door hatch.

[vulgalour]

All Barinas are small Corsa sized things, some are more Corsa than others.  Some are just Corsas with different badges on.

[cort1977]

We had a Swift based one in Oz, went well but the stem seals were on the way out, exhaust was a little blue when revved.

 

If I was going to import a car from Australia it would be a 76 series Land Cruiser or one of the insane V8 Falcons, not a Barina.

[Brodders]

I was tempted to say that maybe someone had stuck some Holden badges onto the front and back of their Corsa to make it seem more interesting, like how some people may stick Cadillac badges onto their Omega to make it look like a Catera, but that wouldn't account for the Q plate.

 

Was it the Swift style one that Cort mentioned above or was it one of those newer style ones which are basically rebadged Chevrolets?

[Split_Pin]

Agreed, if I was going to be importing anything from Australia it be an XB Falcon in Main Force Police colours.

[Squire_Dawson]

I would be importing a Leyland P76. Shame on you all for choosing other antipodean offerings.

[STUNO]

I don't even have to import a P76, just buy one ! lack of cash is a bastard

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Check out the instrument binnacle. I thought it was aftermarket, but apparently not. 

 

 

Someone call Yodel and ask if they're missing any of those scanner/signature things.

[STUNO]

Holden Barina Wiki .The facts man, just the facts.....

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_Barina

[Split_Pin]

That's the same car as our Chevy Aveo. It's just a Corsa D underneath.

[purplebargeken]

Never saw the front but the rear was like the blue one on the Wiki page.

[chaseracer]

Someone does seem to have gone to a great deal of trouble to ship a small car halfway round the world and register it in a country where the vehicle it's closely based on is already available and nobody gives a flying shit about it except twelve blokes in a beige corner of the internet...

 

[mercrocker]

Make that 11.....

[Slappy]

In which case, they should probably be on here...

 

I thought that about 10-15 years ago when I saw a Corsa B Barina (but then again, that could just have been just the badges)

[cort1977]

Check out the instrument binnacle. I thought it was aftermarket, but apparently not. 

 

2011-holden-barina-5d-hatchback-20111031100419550.jpg.ashx.jpeg

 

Someone call Yodel and ask if they're missing any of those scanner/signature things.

I agree that this looks a it 'stuck on' and aftermarket but at the same time I think it is quite good from  functional point of view.   Big sweeping rev counter and a digital speed reading like a motorbike.

[Matt]

This is a Holden Barina 

 

This is a Holden Barina

 

This is a Holden Barina

 

This is a Holden Barina

 

This is a Holden Barina

 

This is a Holden Barina X

 

This is a Holden Barina

 

So basically a fairly randomly chosen small car from General Motors badge engineered for Australians. I should think that most of these are built down under?

[Ghosty]

Yeah, either a Corsa C or a Chevrolet Aveo. 

WTF would you import that for?

[Split_Pin]

Looking at Wiki, the nearest factory that the latest ones appear to be built at is in NZ.

 

How come the UK gets stuck with the miserly 1.2 when the other countries get a 1.6? American Sonic versions get a 1.4 turbo or 1.8!

[inconsistant]

If it was spotted in London it might have been a Boris Barina.

[Matt]

WTF would you import that for?

 

I would think for the same reason that there are a bunch of Japanese import Nissan Micras here. I don't know what those reasons are either though.

[cort1977]

Looking at Wiki, the nearest factory that the latest ones appear to be built at is in NZ.

 

How come the UK gets stuck with the miserly 1.2 when the other countries get a 1.6? American Sonic versions get a 1.4 turbo or 1.8!

Don't think any of the Barinas have been built in Australia.   A few might have been assembled from CKD kits in NZ in the 80s due to import tariffs.   to quote wiki "In 1990, General Motors New Zealand announced its decision to phase out local assembly of passenger cars".

 

Think these are mostly a Korean design with some local market tweaks.   Presumably the UK only gets the small engine to avoid poaching sales from the more profitable euro-Corsa?  

[chaseracer]

The Corsabarinas were shipped from Spain!  They'll be building US police cars in Australia next...

 

Ah.

[Split_Pin]

Don't think any of the Barinas have been built in Australia. A few might have been assembled from CKD kits in NZ in the 80s due to import tariffs. to quote wiki "In 1990, General Motors New Zealand announced its decision to phase out local assembly of passenger cars".

 

Think these are mostly a Korean design with some local market tweaks. Presumably the UK only gets the small engine to avoid poaching sales from the more profitable euro-Corsa?

Our example says GM Korea on the door shut so presume these are essentially Daewoos. It is also identical under the skin to my Mums 1.2 Corsa D. I also happen to have a fairly nifty 1/18 scale model of one which comes from GM Shanghai so I reckon they are built there too.

 

Its actually a great wee workhorse, in 35k it's only wanted 2 droplinks on warranty and a coil pack together with 2 new front tyres. I sometimes feel a bit sorry for it because inside it is a mess and it's covered in parking dings. It also looks on as I clean and polish my other 2 cars. Think I'll treat it to a valet or something.

[purplebargeken]

I like the yellow one.

[wuvvum]

Yep, those Aveos are Daewoos underneath.  They're basically a Mk2 Kalos as far as I can tell.

[sheffcortinacentre]

it looks like everything else on the road zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Ghosty]

they ARE Kaloses.

 

All GM Korea products with Chevrolet badges are Daewoos, renamed because Daewoo had an 'image problem'. They even renamed the company - it was GM Daewoo before 2011.

An image problem so bad, that even the Chevrolet name didn't fix it - and they gave up on selling all the GM Korea products in Europe - though you can still buy Camaros and Corvettes, if you can even find somewhere to sell you one (why bother when you can just walk into any Ford dealer and ask for a Mustang?).

Chevrolet were getting desperate towards the end of the line here - mum's friend's partner had a Cruze he'd not had that long (sub-2 years?), and Chevy wrote to him offering a brand new one at a massive discount. He took it, then PX'd it for a Fiat 500S.  

"American" cars over here are crap, just look how fast they're disappearing. You never see Chevrolet products older than a year or two here now, except the odd Aveo. Where are all the Lacettis? Where's the Dodge Nitro or Avenger? Chrysler Delta? Even 300Cs and Voyagers? Even Lancia on the continent failed, now they're Italy only and on borrowed time. They have a rebadged 300C for the Thema...

 

They're dead. American cars that are 'small enough' for the EU suck. It's just that either you have something useless for the UK because it's too big and gets shit MPG, or you have a 'budget'/medium size/whatever POS with half a dustbin for a dashboard, crap styling and just general bad quality. A budget car in the US is the size of an average car here, and that was the problem. They didn't do small hightly specced cars in America - so they'd never do well here. 

[Split_Pin]

Have you actually owned one though? We've had our wee Chevy since new and the quality is very good, it drives grand if a bit slow, and the dashboard is wacky and funky and even the outside looks a bit different. It compares very well against my mum's 2014 Corsa D SXi which is similarly specced. It's people who have misconceptions about car manufacturers with 'no fixed abode'. Look what happened to Chrysler in the 1970s with Simca stuff.