The link between the two goes back some years. Daewoo developed in the
early eighties a twin cam 16V cylinder head for a GM engine, in much the
same way that Colin Chapman did for the Ford Anglia lump.
This generated much interest in Opel/Vauxhall (GM having just taken Lotus
under their wing) and led to them buying/licensing/stealing the idea and
developing the J series 2.0 litre 16 DOHCfrom it. It was cheaper to get the
design from them than to start from scratch. Besides they had some catching
up to do with the Japanese who were already building 16V TC's fr mass
production cars (Toyota Corolla & MR2, Honda Civic etc).
The first time I heard the name Daewoo was in 1984, they were described as
(sic) "a bunch of little workshops developing other companies mundane
products into really good bits of kit." By a Lotus employee.
Al
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