Every now and then we have a project in Op de Rollenbank here in The Hague. Well, call this a project. An old Corsa that has undergone a heart transplant, a face lift and a body check. Father and son Lebbink from Veenendaal have really rolled up their sleeves. And there you get something like this. Laugh!
Deep respect and hats off. For Michel Lebbink and especially his father Bennie. The latter worked at an Opel dealer for quite some time and took great care of the Corsa on the chassis dynamometer, together with his son Michel, who gave up the Corsa for this section. Father Lebbink himself is the first to put this into perspective with some modesty. “But without my dad, this project would not have been a success,” says son Michel immediately.
The car you see on these pages is originally an Opel Corsa from the 1990-1993 generation, a 1.4i Swing. The City was another version from that period. Little is left of the original 1.4i Swing of 60 hp and 103 Nm, Michel explains. “In 2014, the 1.4i Swing was tackled by its then owner. They converted it and installed a 2.0 16V engine from a Vectra.” That means a lot more horsepower, because we also know that engine from the Kadett GSi and the Astra F GSi. The power source delivers 150 hp and 196 Nm from the factory. “I bought it in 2020 with the then engine,” Michel continues. “I wanted to drive it for fun for a year, but I had to put in a lot of hard work first. The bodywork in particular was mediocre.”
As often happens, one thing led to another. “I actually liked the car so much that I wanted to continue. So, together with my father, I restored it and sprayed it to make it nice and sleek again.” But it didn’t stop at external improvements. “If you say A, you must also say B. So the next chapter was tackling, renewing and improving the real technical work, such as the brakes and suspension. That’s where my father, with many years of experience with Opel, came in handy.” But the project was not finished yet.
The Lebbink family thought it was a good idea to squeeze some more horsepower into the cramped engine compartment of the small Opel. “That was at the end of 2022. Then I decided, together with my father, to take out the 2.0 16V and replace it with a 2.0 turbo from a Zafira and Astra OPC.” For connoisseurs: that is the Z20LET. It is listed for 192 hp (at 5,400 revolutions per minute) and 250 Nm (1,950 rpm), so we can rightly call it a bomb, this Kermit on wheels.
This Corsa is not a little smooth, not a little fast, it has become a cannon. It even pulls out most electric cars. “He doesn’t just look fast, he is fast too,” he says down to earth. And several Golf GTi and Audi RS drivers who were naive enough to take up the gauntlet at the traffic lights have already noticed this…
“I think you should stop patching things up now. In terms of the weight of the car and the power, this Corsa is at its maximum,” dynamometer manager Ghisbert van Ginhoven urges some restraint. It is not entirely coincidental that the Corsa was already a customer of Beek Auto Racing. Michel: “I wanted to have the turbo engine properly adjusted before we measured it.” That worked out well. This track car breaks all Corsa records!
Tags: Opel Corsa Turbo dynamometer
 – On the dynamometer){kind=link}