There was a time, not that long ago, when Vauxhall was a bit mad. It would happily stuff front-wheel drive seven-seater people carriers with power they patently couldn’t handle, or rebadge Australian V8 muscle cars so they could share showroom space with dull nonsense like the Meriva.
Those days have been gone for a while now, but there are signs they could be coming back. Vauxhall is doubling down on its GSE performance badge, starting with an extra-hot Mokka and followed up this week by the ludicrous 789bhp Corsa GSE Vision Gran Turismo. That, obviously, is never going to make production, but it does add further fuel to the rumours that a roadgoing Corsa GSE is on the horizon.
Vauxhall Corsa VXR – side
There is a rather big asterisk, though – that hot Corsa will almost certainly be electric, sharing the same 276bhp, LSD-equipped front-wheel drive setup as the Mokka GSE and a whole bunch of other small, spicy EVs from Stellantis.
That’s naturally got us thinking about the last time there was a hot Corsa, the last car to wear Vauxhall’s now-dead VXR performance badge. Based on the previous-gen Corsa E and launched in 2015, it built on its predecessor’s recipe, packing a 202bhp 1.6-litre turbo four-pot that sent 202bhp to the front wheels. That saw it hit 62mph in 6.5 seconds and a 143mph top end – still admirable numbers a decade later.
Vauxhall Corsa VXR – interior
The mid-2010s were heady times for the compact hot hatch, and the VXR faced stiff competition. It was never quite as slick to drive as a Peugeot 208 GTi, as refined as a VW Polo GTI, or as all-round talented as a Ford Fiesta ST.
What it was, though, was old-school. With its range of bright colours, rorty exhaust, scrabbly front end and big, grinning face, it felt like a hot hatch from a different era even in 2015. Ten years on, and with cars of its ilk almost completely gone from the market, those imperfections look ever more like old-school charm. With the next hot Corsa likely to look very different, that’s naturally got us taking part in our favourite procrastination activity – browsing Autotrader.
Vauxhall Corsa VXR – rear
We’ve stumbled upon this 2015 example, wearing a reasonably low 74,000 miles and what we think is the best colour for the VXR. Sadly, it’s lacking the Performance Pack, which brought a limited-slip diff, tweaked suspension and beefed-up brakes, but that also means it’s wearing the smaller 17-inch wheels, which both improve the ride and, in our eyes, are a little bit more handsome than the bigger 18s the Performance Pack received.
And at the end of the day, it’s still a feisty hot hatch with a manual gearbox and a pair of fantastic Recaro bucket seats in it. And it could all be yours for £6490. When even the boggo-est of boggo new cars is well over twice that, it really does look like good value, especially when there’ll almost definitely never be another Vauxhall like this.
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