Ben's car of the day- Chevrolet Corsica (1988-1996)

Ah yes...the Corsica, a car so common back in it's day that you could leave one in a grocery store parking lot and find 4 or 5 of them next to yours when you return.  It was also a very boring car. It had four doors and a choice of two ho-hum engines.  Anyone looking for excitement would have to buy it's two door sibling, the Beretta.

Anyway, the Corsica was introduced in late 1987 for the 1988 model year to replace a heaping pile of metal and rust that Chevy called the Citation (read my first posting about that).  Despite it being such a blah car, the Corsica sold like hotcakes.  In it's first year on the market, GM recorded 291,000 Corsicas finding homes.  It was the second-best selling car in America (behind the Ford Taurus).

The Corsica appealed to the average joe who viewed cars as an appliance, a way to get from point A to point B, and nothing else (and there are a lot of those types of people in America).  Let me tell you, GM really hit the nail on this one.

1988-1991 Corsica interior.  I wonder if the inside of the steering wheel can double as a boomerang...
photo credit-www.gtcarlot.com 

The Corsica remained a strong seller for Chevy until 1990, when they introduced the Lumina, another sedan.  This car was not only slightly bigger than the Corsica, but had a wider variety of engine, transmission, and trim packages to choose from.  As a result, Corsica sales gradually declined as it retreated into rental-car purgatory (seriously, if you see any '92-'96 Corsica, I'm willing to bet that it started it's life out as a rental car).

So was the Corsica a decent car?  Well, that's debatable.  From my experience growing up in a GM household, I came to the conclusion that GM makes good trucks...but not good cars.  My dad had three S-10 Blazers that served our family well, however we also had a 2001 Pontiac Bonneville and a 2002 Chevy Malibu that were complete POS's.  The same could be said about the Corsica.  I still see a few putting around where I live.  And when I do, it's either:

   A. peeling paint like burnt flesh
   B. lost (or about to lose) it's muffler
   C. reeking of burnt oil (the 2.8L V6 was notorious for this)
   D. All of the above

But luckily for any Corsica owner, parts are very plentiful (remember, GM sold a crap-load of them back in the day), and are relatively simple to maintain, so keeping one on the road isn't TOO frustrating.  Also, because it is such a nothing car, the Corsica is cheap to insure, making it ideal for first-time drivers...even after 99% of them stuff giant sub-woofers in the trunk.

So would I ever get a Corsica?....well....not the sedan version.  In 1989, Chevy tried to double it's Corsica sales by cutting a large opening in the back and adding a larger rear window.  The result? the Chevy Corsica Liftback.

'89-'91 Corsica "Liftback"

So just by looking at it, it's clear that this was something GM pulled out their ass.  From reading some Corsica-related literature as well as surfing some Corsica forums (yes, they exist) the only thing that differentiates the sedan from the liftback was the hatch itself and the way the glovebox opened (which opened like a drawer.)  There also wasn't much of a difference in cargo space between the two.  Nevertheless, customers saw through this and bought the Corsica sedan.  The liftback was phased out in 1991 after only 40,000 cars sold over a three year period.  The low sales number and the even lower number of survivors make it quite obscure....AND I WANT ONE!

Link to incredibly corny Corsica commercial here

Link to Corsica hatcback review here (complete with poor VHS quality!)