The
Daewoo LeMans is a
subcompact carA subcompact car is an automobile in a North American vehicle size class, encompassing vehicles smaller than compact cars...
, first manufactured by
Daewoo MotorsGM Daewoo Auto & Technology was first established as National Motor in 1937 in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, South Korea...
in
South KoreaSouth Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often simply referred to as Korea, is a country in East Asia, located on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul, the second largest...
between 1986 and 1994. It was replaced by the facelifted
Daewoo Cielo—a car mechanically identical to the LeMans, differentiated only by its modified styling cues. The Cielo was subsequently replaced by the subcompact
Daewoo LanosThe Daewoo Lanos was a subcompact car manufactured by the Korean automaker Daewoo Motors from 1997 to 2002, and from 1997 to 2008 made under a license agreement by the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych in Poland, marketed as FSO Lanos, and assembled in Ukraine in modified versions known as Daewoo Sens...
and compact
NubiraThe Daewoo Nubira is a compact car produced by South Korean automaker Daewoo Motors from 1997 to 2008.The first generation car, model J100, was released to the market in 1997 as Daewoo Nubira, and it was sold until 1999. It was developed as a replacement for the GM T platform-based Daewoo Nexia and...
in 1997, except in some
Central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
markets where production of the four-door continues be manufactured in
UzbekistanUzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union...
.
Like all Daewoos preceding it, the LeMans took its underpinnings from a European
OpelAdam Opel GmbH, commonly known as Opel, is a German automaker. The company was founded on 21 January 1863, began making automobiles in 1899, and was acquired by General Motors in 1929...
design.
The
Daewoo LeMans is a
subcompact carA subcompact car is an automobile in a North American vehicle size class, encompassing vehicles smaller than compact cars...
, first manufactured by
Daewoo MotorsGM Daewoo Auto & Technology was first established as National Motor in 1937 in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, South Korea...
in
South KoreaSouth Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often simply referred to as Korea, is a country in East Asia, located on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul, the second largest...
between 1986 and 1994. It was replaced by the facelifted
Daewoo Cielo—a car mechanically identical to the LeMans, differentiated only by its modified styling cues. The Cielo was subsequently replaced by the subcompact
Daewoo LanosThe Daewoo Lanos was a subcompact car manufactured by the Korean automaker Daewoo Motors from 1997 to 2002, and from 1997 to 2008 made under a license agreement by the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych in Poland, marketed as FSO Lanos, and assembled in Ukraine in modified versions known as Daewoo Sens...
and compact
NubiraThe Daewoo Nubira is a compact car produced by South Korean automaker Daewoo Motors from 1997 to 2008.The first generation car, model J100, was released to the market in 1997 as Daewoo Nubira, and it was sold until 1999. It was developed as a replacement for the GM T platform-based Daewoo Nexia and...
in 1997, except in some
Central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
markets where production of the four-door continues be manufactured in
UzbekistanUzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union...
.
Like all Daewoos preceding it, the LeMans took its underpinnings from a European
OpelAdam Opel GmbH, commonly known as Opel, is a German automaker. The company was founded on 21 January 1863, began making automobiles in 1899, and was acquired by General Motors in 1929...
design. In the case of the LeMans, the
GM T platformThe General Motors T-car was an automobile platform designation for subcompact cars. It was the 1970s' most prolific world car program. The original T-cars were all rear-wheel drive unibody cars....
-based
Opel KadettThe Opel Kadett is a small family car produced by the German automaker Opel between 1937 and 1940, then from 1962 to 1992.Delta in South Africa used the Opel Kadett name until 1999.-First generation :...
E was the donor vehicle, essentially just
badge engineeredBadge engineering is a term that describes the rebadging of one product as another. Due to the high cost of designing and engineering a totally new model, or establishing a new brand , it is often more cost-effective to rebadge a single product multiple times.The term derives from the trademark...
into the form of the LeMans, and later the facelifted Cielo.
In markets outside of South Korea, the original version of the car bore the
AsünaAsüna was a captive import automobile brand created in 1992 for the Canadian market by General Motors as a counterpart to Geo. It was one of two successors to the Passport brand, which had a similar intent....
GT,
Asüna SE,
Daewoo 1.5i,
Daewoo Fantasy,
Daewoo Pointer,
Daewoo Racer,
Passport Optima and
Pontiac LeMansThe Pontiac LeMans was a model name applied to compact and intermediate-sized automobiles offered by the Pontiac division of General Motors from 1962 to 1981. The LeMans was replaced by the downsized Pontiac Bonneville for the 1982 model year...
names. The facelifted
Daewoo Cielo in five-door hatchback form was exported to
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
as the
Daewoo Nexia with the four-door sedan sometimes holding the
Daewoo Racer name. The
Daewoo Heaven name was also used, although the "LeMans" nameplate was not used at all for the facelifted model.
1986–1994
The original series Daewoo LeMans was available as a three-door hatchback and a four-door sedan when introduced in 1986. Sales of the LeMans began in 1988 in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
where it was sold as the Pontiac LeMans.
In 1989 more models were released including a sportier Pontiac LeMans GSE based on the
Opel Kadett GSiThe Opel Kadett is a small family car produced by the German automaker Opel between 1937 and 1940, then from 1962 to 1992.Delta in South Africa used the Opel Kadett name until 1999.-First generation :...
, with a 2.0 litre four-cylinder engine. The GSE was available in a monochromatic paint scheme in red, white or silver with 14 inch
alloy wheelAlloy wheels are automobile wheels which are made from an alloy of aluminium or magnesium metals .-Characteristics:...
s, fog lights and a rear spoiler. The GSE also had the
RecaroRECARO GmbH & Co. KG, commonly known as Recaro, is a German company based in Kirchheim unter Teck in the vicinity of Stuttgart, known for their automobile bucket seats...
-style seats of the Kadett. A Pontiac LeMans SE sedan with upgraded equipment from the base and LE models also had the 2.0 litre four-cylinder engine, also used in the
Chevrolet CavalierThe Chevrolet Cavalier, also known as the Savvy Cavy, was a compact automobile produced from 1982 to 2005 by General Motors. Built on the company's J platform, the Cavalier was one of the best-selling cars in the United States throughout its life....
and
Pontiac SunbirdThe Pontiac Sunbird, produced by the Pontiac division of General Motors, was Pontiac's second small-car offering of the 70's. The Sunbird model ran for 18 years and was then replaced in 1995 by the Pontiac Sunfire...
. In North America, poor quality tarnished sales and the Pontiac LeMans and Asüna SE/GT were discontinued after 1993 with no replacement. Later that year, the Asüna brand was discontinued altogether.
The five-door hatchback body style was known as the Daewoo LeMans Penta5 in South Korea.
1994–1997
The second generation LeMans launched in 1994, available as a three- and five-door hatchback and four-door sedan with a 1.5 litre eight-valve or a 1.5 litre 16-valve engine. These new models were still based on the Opel Kadett E, underpinned by the "T-car" platform. There were various trim levels available; in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, where the car sold as the Daewoo Nexia, these were GLi (eight-valve) and GLXi (16-valve) for the general public, with a "base" model available for large contracts. Unlike the Kadett, there was never a
station wagonA station wagon is a passenger automobile with a body style similar to a sedan, or saloon, but with the roofline following the full, sometimes extended rear cargo area and sometimes an extra row of sometimes rear-facing seats, ending with a more vertical door than on a hatchback.Also sometimes...
version available. Some European markets got the "Lifestyle" trim level;
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
and
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
badged their GLi/GLXi equivalents "Chess"; the
BeneluxThe Benelux is a union in Western Europe that comprises three neighboring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg , which lie in the north western European region between France and Germany...
countries kept the GLi/GLXi trim levels. The GLi has an average performance with a 0-100 km/h time of 11.3 seconds and . However, the GLXi upped the power to and the 0-100 km/h time was reduced to 10.5 seconds.
Uzbekistan (1997–present)
In
UzbekistanUzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union...
,
UzDaewooAutoUzDaewooAvto was set up as a joint venture between Daewoo and the Uzbekistan government located in Asaka city, Andijan province, Uzbekistan. UzDaewooAuto was set up on a parity basis in 1992 by state-owned Uzbek car-maker Uzavtoprom and South Korean car-maker Daewoo Motor.- History :In 2005, the...
continues to manufacture the four-door saloon version of the Nexia. A number of other Daewoo/Chevrolet models are produced and sold in Uzbekistan and neighbouring
KazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country situated in Eurasia that is ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also the world's largest landlocked country. Its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe...
and
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.