1995 Vauxhall Corsa GSi 16v

[ianw]

Not long stumbled across this forum, wasted plenty of time so far reading threads and then checking eBay 

So my car, it's a '95 Corsa GSi which is original bar 16's and coilovers. Tends to split opinions on whether it is 'retro' or not but it is 21 years old after all and not a common site on the roads anymore (certainly in GSi guise).

I've owned this particular one for 2 years but it is my 3rd in 14 years. 




I'll write up the progress over the last couple of years shortly...

[tomfairall]

wicked mate

[kevstarlet]

Sweet, love Gsi's. Speedlines were made for it!!

[ianw]

Thanks

As soon as I get chance I will upload all the progress over the last couple of years in order...

[gazjon]

Perfect amount of modified without being chavy. They are a rare beast now as you say. Look forward to the pics

[darrenh]

100% these have future underdog classic written all over them

[southside]

Welcome, I've got one too

They are really starting to increase in value now, the last couple I've watched on eBay were real rough with no mot and both made £2k on the bid.

[BT]

Retro and cool in my opinion.

I remember in the early 2000's my good friend had one in smoke grey and we spent many a misspent evening in that car. I liked it so much I bought a GSI kit and slimg it on my basic 1.2 flame.

Nice colour as well.

[ianw]

Thanks for the warm welcome

Ok, here goes, right back to the start..

Bought my first GSi around 2002, it rough around the edges but I knew what I wanted to do with it, during my ownership of 5 years it had a brand new GSi kit, full repaint, many different suspension setups, custom springs and I fitted a C20XE.





Sadly, within a couple of months of it becoming a second car, some one pinched it never to be seen again At that point I didn't have the money to replace it so that was it, as we all do though, kept my eye on eBay...

Fast forward a few years and I spotted this one, fairly local and a standard, complete car, paid £375 and drove it home.



At this point I had moved back to my parents house to ramp up my savings for a house deposit so it got stashed in my sisters garage and sat there for 18 months.

Bought my own place with a decent sized garage and as soon as I could, got cracking with the project when it quickly became apparent, this was not going to be a quick fix, rot, rot and more rot everywhere

Browsing eBay one day looking for a part for it, I spot a very clean looking white GSi for sale, already running Speedlines and coilovers and up for a fair price (£1300 iirc) It had around 6 months MOT on it which meant I could actually drive it virtually straight away. Fired the guy a message and as quick as that the deal was done, the car was around an 11 hour round trip away and my default road trip mate was on holiday so I decided to risk it and just booked a recovery through shiply!

That weekend it turned up outside my house and I was like a kid at xmas.



...

[ianw]

So, I now had a new project on the go, first thing I did is go for a drive, quickly remembered how bad the brakes on these are and then got it cleaned up so I could see what I was working with...





Overall I was pretty happy, a few areas that needed attention, mainly paint touch ups and the kit really needed pulling off and refitting properly, there was still a few weeks of winter left at this point so I decided before I taxed it I would get it in my garage and give it a good hit with the machine polisher..









Came up pretty good for a first pass in a cold cramped garage













..

[darrenh]

so you still have the silver one too ?

[adi]

I remember these when they were everywhere and all my local ones had their pants pulled down daily. I imagine a good solid one is hard to find now. I heard these engines were massively downtuned as well?

[am4nf]

Glacier White Gsi!!! so much want haha Ive got a few corsasport stickers somewhere... lol tigra coin tray and a few other bits kicking about somewhere

[am4nf]

Dec 8, 2016 18:34:35 GMT adi said:

I remember these when they were everywhere and all my local ones had their pants pulled down daily. I imagine a good solid one is hard to find now. I heard these engines were massively downtuned as well?

Exactly this, restrictive inlet manifold as it was a lotus engine originally iirc, there are two types of inlet for the gsi too ones metal ones plastic with the metal being the earlier ones and slightly more bhp, could pick up a decent inlet for them for about £100 last time I checked

[petermchugh79]

Iv a horn! Memorys of my youth

[am4nf]

Had mine for 7 years... was only a 1.4 16v Sport but I had a pro-tech 4-1 manifold, full powerflow stainless system with sports cat, kn panel with drilled airbox... went well

[am4nf]

Had a 1.6 16v sport too, along with 3 other b's

[njw]

Nice, brings back memories of tearing about in one of several Corsa's owned by my mate over the years, the best one was a bog standard L model complete with steel wheels, windy windows and faded grey bumpers that had a 1.6 8v Astra engine chucked in it one weekend, thing is, it was bolted up to the original 1.2 gearbox so the acceleration was amusing to say the least.

[johnd]

Hola - CS crew

[ianw]

Dec 8, 2016 17:50:19 GMT darrenh said:

so you still have the silver one too ?

No, wish I did, really struggled to sell it and eventually got £350 for it. 

There is one on ebay at the minute so looks far worse than it and it is currently over 1k on bids