Photo: Budget Direct
Not sure how many of you remember the Daewoo Matiz. Born in 1998 in the hands of a South Korean company that is better known for grander things, such as shipbuilding, the nameplate enjoyed a brief, yet intense life in several parts of the world, including Europe, and at one point got rebranded as a Chevrolet Spark.
The thing was around for roughly four generations. It was a favorite of fleet operators, with the Matiz becoming one of the most sought-after rides for salespeople in Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The thing was not a monument of engineering, but it got the job done, and this is why people loved it. Design wise, it was an ugly duckling (you’ll find, of course, a lot of fans who liked the design, kind of like you do with the Trabant) but, again, it got the job done and that’s what mattered.
The Matiz is no longer in production, neither as a Daewoo nor as a Chevrolet. But some people still dream about it, it seems, and here’s how we ended up with this here modernized rendering of one.
The image is part of a larger project ran by Budget Direct, seeking to discover how cars made by defunct brands would look like if they’d still be in production.
Starting from what appears to be the facelift for the first generation (2000 - 2005), the car was transformed into something else entirely, an apparition that even if it’s as ugly as the original, brings to the table things the Matiz never dreamed of having, like large headlights, and wheels the size of which were never tried on such a vehicle.
We’re not being told what powers the thing, and it doesn’t really matter, given how this is just an exercise of the imagination. The only question that remains is if this is the look a fifth generation of the Matiz would have had.
The thing was not a monument of engineering, but it got the job done, and this is why people loved it. Design wise, it was an ugly duckling (you’ll find, of course, a lot of fans who liked the design, kind of like you do with the Trabant) but, again, it got the job done and that’s what mattered.
The Matiz is no longer in production, neither as a Daewoo nor as a Chevrolet. But some people still dream about it, it seems, and here’s how we ended up with this here modernized rendering of one.
The image is part of a larger project ran by Budget Direct, seeking to discover how cars made by defunct brands would look like if they’d still be in production.
Starting from what appears to be the facelift for the first generation (2000 - 2005), the car was transformed into something else entirely, an apparition that even if it’s as ugly as the original, brings to the table things the Matiz never dreamed of having, like large headlights, and wheels the size of which were never tried on such a vehicle.
We’re not being told what powers the thing, and it doesn’t really matter, given how this is just an exercise of the imagination. The only question that remains is if this is the look a fifth generation of the Matiz would have had.
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