Crash Tested: 2005 Chevrolet (Daewoo) Matiz Tested By Euro NCAP (With Video)
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Over half a decade ago, the European New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) performed its series of crash tests on the 2005 “Chevy” Matiz. We put Chevy in quotes because the Matiz, which was subsequently replaced by the new global Spark in most markets, was one of the final (abominable) creations of Daewoo, right before the bankrupt South Korean automaker was acquired by The General.
Suffice to say that the Chevy-badged Daewoo didn’t do so well in the tests, earning some low scores.
| Test | Score/Possible score |
|---|---|
| Adult Occupant: | 17/50 |
| Child Occupant: | 30/50 |
| Pedestrian: | 13/40 |
Euro NCAP had the following observations to make about the diminutive city car:
Front Impact
The deflection of the passenger dummy’s chest due to seat belt loading was greater than the driver’s and was used in the calculation of the adult occupant score. Structures within the knee-impact area represented potential hazards to the knees and femurs of both the driver and the passenger. The protection offered to the driver’s lower legs was weak.
Side Impact
Compression of the driver’s chest in side impact represented an unacceptably high risk of life-threatening injury. As a result, the final star of the adult occupant rating is struck through.
Child Occupant
A rearward-facing childseat should not be placed in the front passenger’s seat as there is no way to deactivate the airbag in that seating position. The labels warning against doing this did meet Euro NCAP’s requirments. The ISOFIX anchorages in the rear outboard seats were not sufficiently well marked to meet Euro NCAP’s requirements.
Pedestrian
The bumper scored no points for the protection it offers to pedestrians.
The GM Authority Take
So, why is it that we’re showing you an eight-year-old crash test for a car that today is only sold in India? Because its existence under the Chevrolet brand exemplifies what is wrong with the Old GM: did anyone at Daewoo, and more importantly, at GM, actually expect people to buy and then drive this car? Because if we were making an actual vehicle, the last words we would want associated with our product following crash safety tests are “weak”, “unacceptable, and “not sufficient”.
The bottom line is that The General should have never put Chevy’s name on this piece of garbage, and should have never introduced it to Europe, furnishing us with the impression that rebadging lackluster Daewoo products hurt The Bow Tie brand’s reputation so bad, that it couldn’t be fixed with even significantly better products like the Cruze, new Aveo, Captiva, and Malibu. And the result is that horrible product like the Matiz led GM to withdraw Chevy from Europe altogether. Because it most certainly didn’t help the brand.
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I agree with your comment. If the new Chevy Spark replaces the Daewoo Matiz, why should it be sold elsewhere? Maybe there is a large stock of unsold Matiz cars and GM wants to sell it where there are lesser safety regulation (many low-income countries).
I hope each European government post fines against GM for doing this. There are safer GM vehicles being built and sold, and those are the ones which can carry the GM and Chevy names with honor!
it’s because of crap like this that chevy no longer sells cars in Europe. Having lived in the Middle East for a good period of time, I can tell everyone who’s reading this that chevy still sells rebadged crap from Daewoo as well as Isuzu, which is pathetic considering some of the things that Toyota sells over there as well as the stuff we’re seeing over here in the states. My point is this: GM needs to get chevy’s crap together.
For one, the first generation Matiz is in my eyes the most beautiful car which Daewoo (now called GM Korea) has ever built.
The second generation Matiz, which is the subject of this article, is still on sale as “Chevrolet Spark” in varous countries in South America, e.g. as presented by Chevrolet Chile on this web page. The newer Chev. Spark is called “Spark GT” there.
The Matiz is also sold as “Baojun Le Chi” in China (don’t know if its the 1st or 2nd generation Matiz), after having been sold as Chevrolet in China. (Baojun is the passenger car brand of SGMW, the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture; the Baojun 630 is announced to appear soon on the market in Algeria as Chevrolet Optra).
And the 1st generation Matiz is also still produced by Uz-Daewoo, a joint-venture formed in 1992 of Daewoo and the uzbek UzAvtosanoat (Uzbek Automobile works). Those Daewoos are probably the source of the Daewoos which appear on the the statistic of new car registrations in Russia (published on the web in English by the Association of European Businesses), ranking 12th brand with 88232 units registered in 2012.
Apparently, Daewoo is still alive and kicking.
” … Daewoo (now called GM Korea)… ”
Incorrect. Daewoo ≠ GM Korea.
Daewoo as it existed years ago as a Korean entity with subpar design, engineering, R&D processes, quality control, and manufacturing operations no longer exists.
There isn’t a definitive time for when it disappeared, but it was within the last 6-8 years, according to my estimations. Today, whatever operations General Motors has in South Korea are part of the global GM operations, including research, design, engineering, and manufacturing processes. There is a tremendous difference between the two that should not go unnoticed.
That said, the Matiz as seen here is still on sale in some markets. As the article states:
The Matiz was “… subsequently replaced by the new global Spark in most markets”
The key word there is “most”, with some exceptions being in existence, including certain markets in Asia (China), Latin America as well as India, where the 2nd-gen Matiz is sold as the “Spark”, and the new GM Korea-developed model is marketed as “Beat”.
As you spoke about Algeria and as I am Algerian and GM fan especially chevy, I didn’t understand the what the official distributor of Chevy and Opel but not only ( http://www.diamal.net ) it distribute even European , Japanese and Chinese trucks. In the case of Chevy many people fears it and thinks that it’s a Chinese brand especially with the Sail.
The arrival of the Baojun 630 as the new Optra will not be good as the old one had a good reputation personally a had one a 2005 with what i did 345000 KM without problem, but even if the Baojun have the same Delta platform, it will not have an Ecotec engine, Mac pherson suspension and its Chinese made car, even if the first Optra was in fact a re badge Daewoo Nubira, but it was a good car.
Further more i didn’t understand the strategy of Diamal as they proposed many cars in one segment, for example they propose the new Spark and in the same time the old one as “Spark Lite Legend”. They propose the Sail 4 & 5 doors and the Aveo 4 & 5 doors and the Sonic in the same segment with no great difference in price between the entree level Sonic and the Aveo/Sail which have bad reputation.
In addition they have only the Captiva which is well estimated and the Trax with only one engine the 1.8 140 hp, and the Colorado for pick up segment.
Diamal do not propose the Malibu, Impala, Caprice, Tahoe/Suburban, Silverado, Orlando for the cars. For the engine there is no 1.4T for the Cruze, Sonic and Trax. as car buyers looks for efficient cars the 1.6 and 1.8 are not very efficient especially in cities. There is no MYlink even in the Cruze Diesel which is one of the most powerful and comfortable in its segment with the 2.0 vcdi 163 hp engine and for the Captiva too.
Oh i forgot to speak about the Camaro they introduced it first with 2 models the V6 and the RS V8 there no SS, ZL1 nor the Z/28, I will not speak about the Corvette as even many people who works for Chevy here don’t know that it exist.
For Opel it’s the same. The is no Cadillac even if Audi and Mercedes sold a lot of cars. For BMW it was distributed by Bavaria Motors which is owned by CFAO as DIAMAL and BMW decided to change the official distributor because of customer complain.
Here is the link for Chevy Algeria car range ( chevrolet.diamal.net/fr/catalog/produits/liste ) ang Opel Algeria car range( http://www.opel-algerie.com/vehicules/passenger-cars.html ).
Let me summarize the main turning points in the evolution from Daewoo Motors to GM Korea for Alex Luft:
• 1937, still under Japanese colonial rule, the company “National Motors” is founded
• 1982, this is integrated in the Jaebol (or Chaebol) Daewoo as Daewoo Motors
• 2002, Daewoo Motors gets into financial troubles, and is saved by GM and partners by separating Daewoo Motors from the Jaebol into a company called GM Daewoo Automobile & Technology, short GM DAT, of which GM takes 42% (rounded down), and Suzuki and Chinese SAIC each also a certain percentage. The GM share is held by GM’s Australian subsidiary, Holden. Peter Hanenberger, former Opel-manager and back then Holden CEO takes a seat on the GM DAT board. Holden forms an Australian Daewoo distribution company, and announces to keep Daewoo as a low cost entry brand.
• 2004, GM reverses its strategy and decides that the Daewoo cars will be exported from 2005 on under the Chevrolet brand name; the Australien Daewoo distribution is shut down, and
• 2005 Holden starts to offer Daewoo cars under the Holden brand name. The Chevrolet brand name is introduced to Europe as a cheap entry level brand name by simply renaming the cars and the whole Daewoo dealership network to Chevrolet. The brand name Daewoo is kept for the South Korean market.
• 2009 The Chevrolet Cruze is introduced by GM DAT as a replacement of the home grown Daewoo Lacetti or Nubira. The Cruze is based on the Delta II platform developed by the Opel development center in Rüsselsheim. The smaller cars, however, the Spark and Aveo/Sonic are evolutions of the original Daewoo developments Matiz and Kalos. While these smaller cars were intended as global platforms, they are rejected by GM’s European operation, Opel, for being too heavy, and maybe for other reasons, too (nothing was said officially).
• 2011. GM has increased its stake in GM DAT in the mean time to 77%. In February, the GM DAT board decides to change the name to GM Korea, and to market their cars in Korea itself no longer as Daewoo, but as Chevrolet.
Later, GM Korea introduces the Malibu as its top of the line car, based on the Epsilon II architecture developed in the Rüsselsheim ITEZ.
• 2013 GM finally realizes the error of introducing Chevrolet as a bargain basement brand in Europe, and announces the end of the marketing of the Korean Chevrolets in Europe.
Summary
As every living organism, Daewoo Motors becoming GM DAT becoming GM Korea underwent changes, but it is basically still the same company, with the same engineers, the same factories, the same workers, and — for the smaller cars — the same technical basis. So I don’t see any reason to pretend that today’s GM Korea has nothing to do with its history.
To the contrary: there is no reason to pretend that today’s GM Korea has anything to do with Daewoo operations of the past.
With the exception of two small errors that I will outline below as well as other opinion-based conclusions that I will not address (such as point #2013), your timeline is fairly accurate.
But there is one major fallacy that serves as the basis for your opinion. You seem to have trouble understanding that as GM integrated Daewoo, and subsequently, GM Korea, into its global processes of research, development, design, and production, among others, it striped out what was left of Daewoo altogether.
Sure, the buildings and (some of) the employees may be the same… but they now work within GM’s global environment of designing, engineering, and producing world-class vehicles. That is the biggest difference. It is one of (tangible) process, and one of (intangible) culture. Anything designed by Daewoo Motors before GM integrated the unit into its global operational structure was subpar, and would not be worthy of being called “world-class”. On the other hand, the work performed by GM Korea today is competitive, sometimes much more than that, on a global scale, and is sold all over the world to decent, good, and very good results. The exception to that are the recent European developments in regards to Chevrolet, which weren’t so much a result of product as they were a result of poor marketing and the poor brand image of Chevrolet.
All that is to say this: the walls may be the same and the people may be the same. But what those people do within those walls, and how they do it, has monumentally changed thanks to the introduction and integration of GM global processes.
GM Korea today is a globally-integrated engineering and design center, just like those found in the U.S., Germany, Australia, and, to some extent, China via the Shanghai-GM joint venture. Realize that what I am describing here is a matter of implementation physically (processes) and intangibly (culture).
Now, for the small errors I referred to earlier:
1. The Malibu is not the flagship in Korea. It’s the Alpheon, a rebadged Buick LaCrosse.
2. Although the Sonic/Aveo (current 2012 and newer generation) was “home roomed” at GM Korea, it was developed globally, and rides on the Gamma II architecture that has been praised for its composure and rewarding driving experience. It has nothing to do with the Daewoo Kalos, as your mention. To that end, you can be certain that the next-generation Opel/Vauxhall Corsa will use the same architecture.
Your presentation, Alex Luft, is just of beliefs, and asks for blind belief. Its yours, but I can’t see it.
As your small remarks:
1st: Alpheon is marketed in South Korea only. I am concerned, of course, only of the Korean (Daewoo) Chevrolets. And for the Korean Chevrolets, which are marketed in Europe by the subsidiaries of GM Korea (not of GM), the Malibu is the top of the line.
2nd: The Korean small car platform was and is certainly intended for global use, but if it had actually been developed globally, the Rüsselsheim would have been involved, and would thus have no reason to reject the finished result presented to them as being done without their participation. It would then also have been used for a Corsa E. Currently it is only used for the lower end by the Koreans and by GM do Brasil for their cheap cars (Onix, Prisma, Spin).
If this platform would really be used for a successor of the current Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, it would, I presume, result in a big setback for Opel. Currently the Corsa takes second place in the new car registrations in Germany after the VW Polo, and with a not so huge distance, commanding 10.2% of the small car segment compared to the Polo’s 14.2%. In the compact class, the Astra takes only 6.8% of the market, ranking 4th, and the VW Golf (and Jetta) 32%. It is obviously with good reason that Opel has used the Small Car Common Components for the Adam, and not the Korean developed Gamma II.
Well, I see that there is a new version of the Aveo, T300, from 2011, and maybe that one fits better. We’ll see — good grief, that I am not a fan…
The Matiz sold and still does sell like hot cakes in Korea. In fact I am beating the snot out of a 1st gen Matiz as my beater here in Korea as I speak – it’s a fun but slow car! Don’t get it twisted though, it IS a total piece of sh#t, as far as cars go.
A piece of ish it is, no doubt.
But are you sure the Matiz is still sold in Korea? It’s not on the Chevy Korea website:
http://www.chevrolet.co.kr
This “piece of shit”, as Alex Luft likes to call it, is what shaped the brand image of “Chevrolet” in Europe, not so much the oversized gas-guzzling pickups familiar to the US public.
But I have to admit again that the original Matiz was the best looking car ever to be produced by Daewoo and GM Korea. I think they got an Italian designer for it.
While many other brands work hard to develop brand image and reputation, GM made a monumental mistake with integrating and marketing GM Daewoo outside of Korea. Sure the Cruze and Sonic/Barinas receives okay reviews, but the former product was/is sub par and was a huge mistake to bring them under Chevy/Holden nameplates. Their poor perception by US and Australian motoring public is very palpable and to this day are considered to be inferior to Jap and other vehicle maker products. It is time for rebuilding brand image and winning over conquest sales. It has started with Cadillac but will take many years of hard work and effort to undo the damage. Also GM has a duty of care to all their customers to engineer safe and reliable vehicles!! Lessons learnt – time will tell!!
Sure is a pity Mr. Ritter hasn’t read/commented on this article, Alex. He’d then realise and have to accept once and for all why Chevrolet crashed and burned in Europe. GM really trashed the bow-tie in European eyes … you can’t blame the Euro-folk for Chevy’s abject failure over there!
As an aside, the Daewoo brand is still alive and thriving across the former Soviet countries. GM-DAT and UZ run a joint-venture operation in Uzbekistan, where they’re still churning out the Matiz along with the 1983 Astra B/Kadett E (albeit somewhat updated) badged as the Daewoo Nexia. The latter is the very model that the Daewoo brand originally launched with in Europe way back in 1990, when it was only a generation old, and was a reasonable cheap alternative to the new Astra C!
the actual Chevy Nexia is modernization of the old Daewoo Nexia which was a modernization of the Racer the twin of the Opel Kadett. The Chevy Nexia is a cheap car but a comfortable one it still have GM engines. Its a good car at a lower price.
In which markets is this Nexia being offered under the Chevrolet nameplate?
Observer 7, it seems that MohChevy is indeed correct!
I was surprised, but actually if you check-out the GM-UZ website, you will see that the Nexia is badged and sold as a Chevrolet, but only in Uzbekistan. In all other CIS countries it is still marketed as a Daewoo.
Merry Christmas!
In Algeria it is marketed as Deawoo in Russia it was replaced by the Cobalt in the Chevy lineup.
Looking at the Chevrolet Algeria website (http://chevrolet.diamal.net/), it appears that Chevy doesn’t have an official presence in the country, but is rather distributed by a third party (Diamal). At least that’s what I gathered from the page. Is this correct?
If that is the case, then it’s quite likely that whatever Daewoo-related branding that exists isn’t an actual direction of General Motors, but rather that of third party distributors in the country, who may have not gotten with the times yet. I’m certain that GM’s direction going forward is to not use the Daewoo in any market, with the exception of the strange Uzbekistan join venture.
Diamal distributes the current worldwide Chevrolet Spark and its predecessor, the 2nd generation Daewoo Matiz as Chevrolet Spark Light Legend
The site also shows a “Chevrolet Optra” which does not exactly look like the Baojun 630, which was announced to be marketed in Algeria as Chevrolet Optra beginning 2014. So it might be that the current “Chevrolet Optra” is a Daewoo derivative — it looks quite like the Daewoo Lacetti/Nubira.
BTW, Diamal is the Algerian company of the CFAO automobile distribution network covering large parts of Africa and French “overseas territories”. Actually, some Algerian businesses hold a part of Diamal.
Alex Luft is right in assuming that the Daewoo passenger cars marketed in Algeria come from UZ-Daewoo, Uzbekistan.
The company EURL PROGRESS AUTOMOBILE presents itself on this website as the exclusive representation of UZ-Daewoo in Algeria. They market the Matiz (1st generation), Nexia, and the “Damas” microbus (which is marketed in Korea by GM-Korea, too).
The website tells a history of Uz-Daewoo, which I might translate from French to English, it there is interest.
Besides this representation of Uz-Dawoo, there is a the company Elsecom which distributes Daewoo trucks and buses in Algeria (three other divisions within Elsecom distribute Isuzu, Suzuki, and Ford motor vehicles).
As to GM proper, my latest information is that there is a North Africa Regional Marketing Organisatiom (NARMO) for the Arab countries north of the Sahara, directed from GM Egypt (which is itself a joint-venture with Isuzu (20%) and private Egyptian investors (33%).
The world is not simple…
I red the comments and you are are right for DIAMAL is divided between CFAO (French) and g Group Hasnaoui ( Algerian).
For the Chevy Optra in the Chevrolet Algeria web site its the old one (aka daewoo Nubira, Chevrolet Lacetti) the problem is that its not build by GM but still in the site,and people still ask for it. i had one a 2005 Chevy optra 1.6 its a good car for the price. but i will not buy the next one, the Baojun 630, as the Sail the Chinese Chevy is a bad car and worsen the image of Chevy as the aveo ( Daewoo Gentra x) .
Why do you think that the Chevrolet Optra (aka Nubira/Lacetti) is not manufactured by a GM factory? Who would manufacture it then? The more or less same car is also marketed als Chevrolet Optra in Chile, and it is GM’s bestseller in China as the Buick Excelle (Chinese “Kai Yue”, not to be confused with the newer Excelle XT/GT “Ying lang” in Chinese). These Chinese Buicks are manufactured in China by ShanghaiGM. Maybe that’s where those Chevrolet Optras come from, too.
Observer7 for the Chevy Optra (aka Nubira/Lacetti) i like it and for those sold in Algeria from 2004 until 2006 they were from Korea and from 2007 to 2012 they came from India and Thailand, the Korean ones are better. In Chile there is the Optra Active if i remember well available in Latin America ,the same car as the Optra Magnum which was sold in Canada and India. The Buick excelle is an Optra rebadged , while the Excelle xt/gt are astra’s . But i was speaking about the next Optra to come in Algeria, personally i will advise my friends to not buy it as it’s not a Chevy even if it still ride the Delta platform but its a Baojun.
Shukran, Mohsen, for this information.
But how can you declare the Baojun 630 to be a bad car before you have ever seen one?
You are welcome Observer7, but my name is not mohsen.
For the Baojun 630 i imagine how bad it could be just by seeing other Chinese made cars, as the Sail for example, its a grandpa car.
I drove for the past 20 years BMW 5 series, Nubira 1 2000 sedan, Hyundai Accent 2008 , Nubira 1 1999 break, Aveo 2012, Spark 2007, Skoda Octavia 2, Matiz 2005, Wv Passat b5, Dacia(Renault) Logan, Renault Megane 2, Mercedes C class, Daewoo Cielo(Nexia) 98 and 2005 & I can say that Daewooo were cheap cars to operate and maintain. All in all I used different models from Daewoo about 8 years. I liked that were comfortable, cheap spare parts, broke very seldom. Downside was that good korean parts became unavailable because Daewoo closed in early 2000s. GM parts are available but are more expensive that daewoo original parts…