Daewoo Leganza

The Daewoo Leganza was a mid-size sedan produced by the former Daewoo Motors in South Korea between 1997 and 2002. Its internal development name was V100, under which it and its platform (not directly shared with any other model) are also known.

Daewoo explained that the name Leganza originated from the combination of two Italian words - elegante (elegant) and forza (power).

Development

The Leganza was a part of Daewoo's effort to develop a lineup of proprietary vehicles to replace previous GM-licensed models. Sister projects to the V100 are the T100 Daewoo Lanos and J100 Daewoo Nubira. The development of "x100" cars involved the work of many subcontractors and suppliers. This involved, among others, ZF with regard to transmissions and Holden concerning the engines.

Leganza was styled by the famous Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign. It is believed that this design was inspired by Giugiaro's 1990 Jaguar Kensington concept car, a pedigree Leganza's body shares with the 1991 Toyota Aristo. In case of Leganza, however, Giugiaro had to deal with a shorter vehicle with front-wheel rather than rear-wheel drive, which, combined with Daewoo's styling cues like the large chrome grille, resulted in a very peculiar appearance.

Marketing

Daewoo rapidly expanded their distribution network with the inception of new models, which made the Leganza present in the markets of most countries, albeit not necessarily with sales success. Daewoo placed special emphasis on developing markets, which involved the assembly of Leganzas in countries like Poland, Romania, Russia and Uzbekistan, in plants owned by Daewoo or under license agreements. Nevertheless, this concerned CKD or SKD assembly only, as all Leganzas were effectively made at Daewoo's Bupyong plant in Korea.

It is worth noting that, contrary to many Korean cars sold worldwide, the Leganza was almost invariably sold under the Daewoo Leganza name, the only exception being the Doninvest Kondor, a short-lived version assembled by the Russian Doninvest corporation on Taganrog's TagAZ.