Daewoo have been in choppy waters for some time now though with GM having bought the Korean company, things could possibly be set to get better. Daewoo've had plans to launch new cars in some time, and some months ago, I had gone off to Delhi to test drive the perhaps-to-be-launched-in-India Magnus, Tacuma, and Lanos cars. Here, I shall talk about the biggest of the three - the Magnus...
Going by the suspicious looks they were giving me, Daewoo R&D engineers/test-drivers were none too happy about me being allowed to drive their precious Korean imports. And
who can blame them? There is only one each of the three – the Magnus, the Tacuma, and the Lanos – in India, imported specifically to gauge public reaction, and for purposes of
research and development, and there I was, going to be smoking and sliding them all over the place! But hey, we had a bag of lusty engines and capable chassis/suspension combos here, so how could I resist the temptation to give it heaps…?! ;-D
First up, the Magnus 'Eagle'. This seemed to be the big bruiser cruiser of the three, so I opted to go out in this one first. Handsome in a meaty, chunky kind of way, the Magnus looked very…I don’t know how to put it…”foreign” is the word perhaps. I mean, if this had been a Japanese big car, it would have probably been more toned-down, sanitised.
This was more on the lines of aggressive, and muscular. Nice 15-inch 6-spoke alloys, thick 205/65 Kumho rubber, and organic curves everywhere – this thing would rival a Mondeo
in the looks department, I kid you not. And it’s slightly longer than a Mondeo or a Sonata, and slightly wider than an Accord as well! Inside, the look and feel is ‘rich’, what with faux-wood inserts on the centre console and
elsewhere, and the use of velour upholstery. Strangely enough, the deep-set dials on the instrument panel give it an oddly muscle-car look! Overall, a sense of space pervades, and you can easily imagine undertaking epic
transcontinental journeys in this car. Sure, the daily inner-city work commute is more likely the use this one’s going to be put to, but it’s not that you would (the transcontinental thing…), but that you could…
The Magnus I drove, had a very free-revving 2.0litre DOHC mill, pumping out 148 horses at 5400 revs. The speedo is marked to 220kmph, the tacho goes all the way to 8000,
and so the first question was “what’ll she do, mister?” Let’s find out...
At first I felt just a wee bit uneasy, ’cause the Magnus we had on test was left-hand-drive, but got the hang of it soon, and began motoring in earnest. Yes, the engine feels like its making gobs of power – those claimed 148horses are all there, and accounted for. Step on the juice, and the Magnus picks up speed with deceptive smoothness – there is never any drama – just smooth, uninterrupted forward motion in any of the five gears you pick. The gearbox itself was just a tad notchy, but then this was a well-used (abused?) test hack, so that’s not saying much. Couldn’t put a
stopwatch on the thing, but acceleration in lower gears
felt about equal to that of a Mercedes Benz C180. Not massively rapid, but no slouch either.
Given the very tight confines of the test track, the max I could do was 140, but I am quite sure that given the right road, the Magnus will do at least 200kmph, if not more.
Thrown around very hard, the car retains composure, which, given its size, is commendable. Twice, in a blazing fast second gear corner, I did manage to make it step out of line completely, but things were easily brought back in control with a whiff of opposite lock. Again, this is no car in which you’d want to hone your WRC-style driving skills, but if you want to, the car doesn’t complain too
much. And if you do end up overcooking it, there is ABS in this thing, so no worries!
So where do we stand? Well, this could possibly be yet another contender in the already-crowded D-segment. Handsome, capable, luxurious, and fast. Even though the Magnus still did not feel as well put together as, say, a Skoda Octavia, after driving it, you wonder at the progress Korean car companies have made in the past few years. Power-everything, GPS, ABS, Airbags, capable chassis…everything!
When are we going to build something like this, here in India?
