The Vauxhall Corsa GSi Mates A VXR Chassis To An Insurance-Friendly Engine
Hot hatches are all well and good, but if you’re of a certain age, they’re ridiculously hard to insure for any vaguely sensible sum of money. That’s what makes the ‘warm’ stuff that sits just below particularly tempting: you get the aggressive looks and the driver-focused attitude, but with a more modest power output that won’t result in a premium that costs as much as the damn car.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, we’ve good news: Vauxhall has cooked up a sub-VXR version of the Corsa, and it has the potential to be the most tempting take on the ‘warm hatch’ mantle in the current market.
It’s called the Corsa GSi, and as we’d been expecting, it derives its styling from the full-fat VXR version. We’re talking 18-inch wheels, a big boot spoiler, an angrier front bumper - that sort of thing. But where it gets interesting is the chassis: it’s been given the exact same suspension and brake setup as its 202bhp big brother.
Frustratingly, there’s no word on what’ll power it yet, but our educated guess is that it’ll receive the 148bhp 1.4-litre inline-four currently used in other Corsa models. So it’ll still be reasonably enough, but potentially more satisfying - you’ll have to work just that little bit harder behind the wheel to make up for the power deficit. And you’ll have no trouble doing that, thanks to that stiffer VXR chassis.
We haven’t been given a view of the inside, but Vauxhall is promising leather Recaro seats, a leather “sports steering wheel” and natty aluminium pedals. It’ll have Vauxhall’s IntelliLink infotainment system, which includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility.
We’ll have more details about the car when order books open “later in the year,” Vauxhall says.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I’d rather get the new Fiesta ST line with the 1.0 140PS engine… sweeter engine, potentially even cheaper to run, and not as chavvy
1.4>1.0
Come on, everyone knows 1.0 turbo engines are the worst in every way… Bad reliability, no power advantage and terrible fuel consumption.
And tbh it looks better than a Corsa
Chassis is a lot softer than the ST’s, though. Big appeal of the GSi is having the same suspension and brake setup of the VXR - not often you see something like that done
yep, always try making vauxhall look terrible because some chav 2 days ago slapped the fck out of you :)
chav intensifies
So many of these are going to be crashed…
What about the price though? 20k? xD
I can hear the chavs already… “WE GOIN NOINTEH BRUV BLODY ELL”
The Corsa VXR is bought because it has slightly more power than the Fiesta ST. It didn’t handle as well as its rivals, but still has a very hard ride. So now its just like a regular Fiesta, but less agile and less comfortable. Why?
So insurance can go up with horsepower or is it engine size?
Insurance goes up with absolutely everything. Size of car, number of seats, number of doors, engine size, power, value etc etc