Uno? Of Corsa!

 

Having disappeared from our roads long ago, it’s easy to forget that the Corsa A was ever there to start with. I’m no exception, as I was in a pram the last time I saw one.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh, wondering why a budget hatch from 1982 isn’t on every street corner today. Still, it’s an undignified end for what was once a motoring institution, a car that in ten years sold nearly half a million units in Britain. Today, barely 800 Novas remain on UK roads - whichever way you spin it, that’s steep.

What happened to them, then? Max Power has to be a prime culprit - for a while, their output was made up solely of trick Corsas, which were promptly dumped as the scene gave way to good taste in the mid-2000s.

It wasn’t just the lads’ mags though, as late-noughties scrappage schemes also dealt a hammer blow to early Corsas. Not old enough to be desirable, yet not new enough to be worth keeping, it’s easy to see why most of them went this way - stripped, crushed and consigned to the past, like the sundial or Xtra-Vision.

This 88-plate model’s quite the exception, however. Tucked away in a corner of a countryside estate, it’s in strikingly good nick for its 36 years. It’s not quite concourse, with patches of bubbling rust on the boot and sills, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wicklow registered and bought in nearby Kilcoole, it hasn’t strayed far from its roots either (apart from the Spanish factory it was built in). What’s more mystifying is its NCT - expired since 2017. Honest mistake, or some naughtiness on the owner’s side? I’ll let you be the judge.

Continuing with the theme of long-expired NCTs, I also happened upon this charming 1-litre Fiat Uno, off the road since 2012. Sadly, I couldn’t get much closer, but even from afar, it looked quite the part - right down to the illegible sticker on the rear flank to the smoked indicators, which I'd like to see more of these days.

Time for a Wispa. I’ll see you soon.