Unveiled in 1995 — 25 years ago — on the MAXX prototype, the first the 1.0 l three-cylinder engine from Opel only arrived at the humble Opel Corsa B in 1997.
With 973 cm3 of capacity and 12 valves (four valves per cylinder), in the small prototype this thruster delivered 50 hp and 90 Nm of torque, values far removed from those we see today in the three-cylinder thousand.
When he arrived at the Opel Corsa B, power had already risen to 54 hp at 5600 rpm , however torque had dropped to 82Nm at 2800rpm — all without a “miraculous” turbo helping.
With numbers of this magnitude, the idea of taking an Opel Corsa B equipped with this small engine to an autobahn to try to reach its maximum speed may seem far-fetched. Interestingly, this is precisely what someone decided to do.
a difficult task
As you can see in the video, the small three cylinders that equip this Corsa B quickly reveal its preference for more moderate rhythms.
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Even so, up to 120 km/h, the small Opel Corsa B even revealed some “genetic”, reaching the legal maximum speed in Portugal without major difficulties.
The Opel Maxx had the "honor" of debuting the 1.0 l three-cylinder.
The problem was thereafter... The attempt to reach 160 km/h (on the speedometer), a value that, oddly enough, is 10 km/h higher than the 150 km/h of the advertised top speed, took some and more time.
Despite the difficulties, the first three-cylinder engine from Opel did not leave anyone's credit, and reached that epic speed as you can confirm in the video.