Fix Up, Look Sharp

Meet Dan West’s lavish Vauxhall: running a fiery turbo engine conversion and encased in a smooth, luxurious shell. Because who says Corsa Bs can’t be great cars?

- Sam Preston

When asked to conjure up an image of a car that’s both fast and luxurious, what pops into your head? A German Autobahn smashing hyper saloon, perhaps? Or pretty much any vehicle that’s ever made an appearance in the James Bond film franchise? All justifiable answers, but we bet our last McChicken Nugget that the humble Vauxhall Corsa B wouldn’t feature very highly in your list.

Don’t get us wrong, the mighty Corsa B is a fantastic everyday car. But pretty much everyone would look elsewhere if ‘performance’ and ‘mod cons’ featured close to the top of your want-list. Everyone except our man Dan West here, that is. He has single-handedly spent the last seven years transforming his five-door, 1.4 GLS-spec’d example of Vauxhall’s most popular little hatchback into a torque steering, leather-clad marvel machine. And we reckon when you discover its finer details, you might just change your mind about what this unassuming model is capable of, if you put your mind to it…

The story starts back in 2005, when Dan proudly became the owner of his first Corsa B as his first car. “Being only a stone’s throw from Santa Pod, and with my dad being a mechanic, I’ve always had an interest in cars,” he says. “Watching my dad fixing them inspired me. I really liked the idea of making a car your own…”

With a few light modifications throughout his many years of ownership, the first Corsa eventually succumbed to rust though, ending up in the great big scrap heap in the sky.

Dan wasn’t done with Corsas though. Rather taken with what the hatchback was able to offer, this, his second car, ended up on his drive in 2010. “It was a non-runner that I bought for its shell,” says Dan. “The idea was to swap a few of the better parts over from my last car and then perform an engine swap into it.”