First. Car. LIVE! #18: [Daewoo Espero CDXI] Rate it in the comments below.

Intro: The last one got the most votes from all of them amd i really appreciate that. Never thought people would like this series so much. Or, at least, i think y’all do. Anyway, here is a quirky one this time.

Specs

The top model Espero is powered by a 2.0L inline-4 single cam engine that outputs 105HP and 170NM. Also, it was made by General Motors.

Description

Released in 1990, had a production time of 10 years until 2000.
It wasn’t a huge success, but it surely had a lot of character.
Its design can be traced back to, not only Giugiaro, but also Bertone. The whole body was a mix and match of inspiration from other cars, all finalized into an incredibly aerodynamic body with an aerodynamics coefficient of only 0.26.
The most noticeable feature of it are the taillights, which were inspired none other than the Nissan 240SX.
Also, it was produced from 1995 to 1999 here, in Romania, making it one of the cars i grew up seeing everyday.
Even had two limited editions, Executive and Colour Design, which made it more luxurious and more sporty respectivelly.
The Espero has become quite rare nowadays because of the few reliability flaws i had back in the day.

Mods

I would start by installing the official optional spoiler and official optional alloys.
After that i would go to a tuning shop to get the DOHC cylinder header from the 1.5L 16V engine modded onto the 2.0L 8V, since both models use similar GM engines.
Finally i would do a double exhaust system, with a proper performance intake, ported intake ports, ported valves and two sport catalysers.
Everything would be tied together with a chiptune, which will hopefully result in 200HP or more.

Budget

Since this is a very cheap car, i would generously say 2000€ at most, while most of the cost would be from the tuning shop labour. And fixing what is there to fix with performance aftermarket stuff.

Conclusion

I hope other cars won’t become so rare just because people don’t want to fix them and would rather just throw them away.
It feels like an insult to car history in general and an insult to the designer, especially because you had the opportunity to have a car designed by two of the greatest car designers of all time.
I personally think it would be a good first car and not just because it looks good, but for how it was made, for how complicated and controversial the development cycle was and for how rare it is nowadays.

Scores
Last Score:
7.19 Fiat Panda Novitec 4X4
Best Score:
8.38 Citroën Saxo VTS