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Daewoo · 1986–2016

Daewoo Nexia

Daewoo Nexia
Photo: Rudolf Stricker · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source ↗

The Daewoo LeMans is a compact car, first manufactured by Daewoo in South Korea between 1986 and 1994, and between 1994 and 1997 as Daewoo Cielo — a car mechanically identical to the LeMans, differentiated only by its modified styling cues. Like all Daewoos preceding it, the LeMans took its underpinnings from a European Opel design. In the case of the LeMans, the GM T platform-based Opel Kadett E was the donor vehicle, essentially just badge engineered into the form of the LeMans, and later as the Cielo after a second more thorough facelift. In markets outside South Korea, the original version of the car bore the Asüna GT, Asüna SE, Daewoo 1.5i, Daewoo Fantasy, Daewoo Pointer, Daewoo Racer, Passport Optima and Pontiac LeMans names. The "LeMans" nameplate was not used at all for the facelifted model. Five-door hatchback models exported to Europe were badged Daewoo Nexia with the Daewoo Racer name used seemingly at random on various bodystyles. The Daewoo Heaven name has also been used. The Cielo was subsequently replaced by the subcompact Daewoo Lanos and the compact Nubira in 1997, except in Russia where the production lasted from 1996 to 1998 and Uzbekistan where the production started in 1996 and lasted until the end of 2016. In Uzbekistan, the local manufacturer UzDaewoo Motors (later GM Uzbekistan, now UzAuto Motors) produced exclusively the second generation of the LeMans and badged it as Daewoo Nexia.

Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

On UK roads1492025 Q4

Generations & variants

Photos

UK vehicles on the road

8 licensed and 141 SORN (149 total) at 2025 Q4.

Year (latest quarter)Vehicles
2014526
2015393
2016319
2017256
2018218
2019193
2020180
2021169
2022164
2023161
2024158
2025149

DfT/DVLA VEH0120 vehicle licensing statistics, source ↗, Open Government Licence v3.0. Small counts are rounded or suppressed at source.

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