Hello Sunny: Quality time with the Opel Corsa Cosmo.

Opel Corsa Cosmo aka Sunny.

It’s not often that we name a press car, we only have it for a week so there generally isn’t enough time for us to get too attached to it. This wasn’t the case with the bright yellow Opel Corsa Cosmo aka “Sunny” that was delivered to us over the past week. First and foremost, the colour. It’s bright yellow and we have never been one to enjoy driving a car that makes you squint due to the brightness of its hue. That being said, the yellow paintwork on this car was almost a subliminal message from Opel about the character of this car. See many small cars now feature small three cylinder engines, which generally do the job depending on how many people you have in the car and how steep the uphill is.

Opel on the other hand has chosen to do something that only a few manufacturers are doing, they have decided to turbo-charge their 1.0 litre three cylinder engine. The results? A nippy rev-happy engine that has no problems going uphill and lugging around humans of various shapes and sizes. The car feels like it loves to be driven and as a result, because you’re enjoying yourself behind the wheel, the yellow paintwork seems to add to the fun factor of it all.

Earlier we referred to people of different shapes and sizes, this is another positive aspect of the Opel Corsa, it can actually fit people in the back. We love it’s sibling the Opel Adam, but its limited space in the back makes the Corsa the more practical choice to have. As a young team at TheMotorist, space counts for us and many other people in our age group and life cycle. The thing about being twenty-something, is that being social is an important part of your life, you want the flexibility to say “let’s jump in my car” and it’s not a problem.

Another thing about being young in the times we live in, is that our lives revolve around technology, which is a good and a bad thing. The good part is that we’re tech-savvy but the bad thing is that we expect everything to be the same, whether it’s our cell phone or our vehicle. It’s almost as if Opel built the Corsa and filled it with the technology it has especially for young people. The Cosmo has all the bells and whistles as standard but if you want the car to feel complete, the optional park distances sensors are worth the extra money.

The infotainment system is a peach, the Bi-Xenon lights look great and really improve night time visibility and the cabin is modern yet simple. The car has a feeling of automation to it that makes you feel like you’re in a good place. The only feature I would leave out is the Advanced Park Assist 2, simply because you will use it less than you think. The system works well seven times out of ten but personally we think it’s easier to beef up your parking skills and do it yourself. The car is not huge so it parking itself is not exactly necessary, especially when you have the “City” steering mode which reduces the weight to the steering wheel, making it easier to turn the wheel.

Driving the car everyday makes you think economically as the on-board computer tells you to shift up all the time. Even when you think you’re in the right gear, the car keeps instructing you to change up, teaching you to drive it in the most economical way. The start-stop system works well too but in heavy traffic it did eventually get on our nerves so we gave it a break.

So after a few days went by we looked forward to driving Sunny more and more, it hit us, we were attached. Yes it was yellow and yes people stared at it, but we didn’t care. We formed a relationship with that little car, we felt like it was working with us all the time and it feels good to get that feeling from a car. The fact that we were driving a car that cost around R245 000 with the features it had, also made us relax because sometimes driving a very expensive press car can be a bit intimidating.

Would we live with it? The article answers that question. Would we recommend it? The same goes for that question too. You don’t have to have it in Yellow, there are other colours too, but most times it’s nice to have something to brighten up your day…literally.