Junkyard Find: 2000 Daewoo Nubira Station Wagon
Remember the Daewoo Nubira? No? Did you know that there was a wagon version? Even though production of the Nubira stopped just ten years ago, this car has all but disappeared from our consciousness.
The only reason I noticed this Nubira wagon in a Colorado self-service yard last week was its relatively pristine, un-picked-over condition among a row of completely gutted imports. This row of cars had been out for a couple of months and is no doubt due to be crushed any day now. Even the Kia Sephia nearby had been picked clean, but hardly anybody wanted Nubira parts.
The only reason I’ve been aware of Daewoos in the junkyard at all is that the Faster Farms Plymouth Belvedere LeMons team has been harvesting junkyard Daewoo emblems, cutting off the “Dae” parts, and installing “WOO WOO” badges all over their car. For that reason, I think of a couple of disreputable-looking dudes in skanky chicken suits hooting “WOO WOO!” every time I see a junkyard Daewoo.
We see Daewoos on the street all the time nowadays, but they have Chevy Aveo and Sonic emblems. Like Isuzu, the Daewoo name never meant much on these shores.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Haha the daewoo! The entire brand was a complete and epic fail here in the states. The one that sticks out most in my mind was the Lexus GS300 bootleg daewoo leganza. Pretty little sedans that looked like a period GS packed with all kinds of gizmos for a fraction of the price. A friend of mines mom bought one right off the showroom floor, within a year the paint was oxidizing, engine was burning oil, and the interior was falling apart. The car blew the head gasket at something stupid like 50k miles and that was the end of that. They sold a buttload of these things here in Florida and well, during the summer of 2000 they were everyware. By the summer of 2002 they had already disappeared.
Daewoo - such an awful vehicle that Total Recall Motors decided to partner up with them. That's all you need to know. I bet less people died in Daewoos in history than in Chevrolets et al with those ignition lock issues.