THE Opel Corsa Sprint arises from the question that Opel engineers asked nearly 40 years ago: How far can an Opel Corsa A go?
For an answer, they knocked on Irmscher's door. “Hello gentlemen, we want to know how far we can go with our latest model: the Opel Corsa A”.
Irmscher must have responded something like “come back in a few months. We'll see what we can do with it. But be warned… we only deal with the mechanics”.
And so it was. The Opel design center took care of the look and Irmscher did the most “fun” part. But let's start with the interior…
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The inspiration in the world of rallying is clear. Nothing is missing. By the way, everything that is accessory is missing. The birth of Group B was the ideal excuse to develop this Opel Corsa Sprint — the aim was to participate with it in the 1300 cm3 class.
In the end, only the essentials remained: an aluminum roll bar; dashboard also in aluminum; racing instrumentation; 80 l fuel tank at the rear; competition banks; and of course four-legged belts — the weight was no more than 750 kg.
In mechanical terms, the basis of Irmscher's work was the small 1.3 l in-line four-cylinder engine that powered the Corsa A. The modifications were so extensive that in the end, they practically «started» a specific power of 100 hp/l of this engine, for a total of 126 hp of power at 7600 rpm.
Like? Through the traditional recipe. High performance camshaft, forged pistons, polished intake, dual carburettor and racing exhaust.
The end result was not only the aforementioned 126 hp of power, but above all, an acceleration of the 0-100 km/h in just 8.2s. Numbers that today may not surprise anyone, but that for more than 30 years, made thousands of young people dream.
Unfortunately, contrary to what were the initial plans, Opel never got to release a limited edition to 200 units — for homologation purposes — of the Opel Corsa Sprint by Irmscher.
We all lost, don't you think?