It's unfortunate that the author of this review didn't properly research either the resale market of the Corrado or the equipment differences between the US & Canadian cars. It's further disappointing that allowed obvious typo's and/or errors made it into the final piece. Quoting Red Book values for the Corrado is generally misleading as the rarity of the car (in a world wide production run of 1989 - 1995 there were only 97,512 produced) means that real resale values are quite a lot higher that what the Red Book in Canada, or Kelly Blue Book in the US, list. For example there were only 87 1995 Corrado's imported to North America, all to Canada, and it was the only model year with airbags, meaning it's also the only model year that had be imported into the US. As a result the real resale value of the 1995 ranges from $12,000 - $16,000..... not the $6,900 listed in the article. In most CDN market's $6900 will buy you a G60 model in very good shape or a VR6 model in low-fair to poor shape.
The author mentions the electric seat belts as one of the things to look for when buying a used Corrado. There were no Canadian, European, or Asian market Corrado's equipped with electric seat belts, all those market's received the traditional manual 3-point harnesses. The US was the only market to receive electric seat belts and only the shoulder harness was motorized, the lap belt was still a manual system. In point of fact all US model Corrado's were blacklisted for importation into Canada as a direct result of those automatic shoulder harnesses. The mounting points used for the motorized track failed Canadian safety regulations and modifications to a vehicles restraint systems are illegal. Other differences associated with the shoulder belts was a heavy under-dash knee bar in the US cars designed to restrict the occupants forward motion in the event of a crash if they hadn't buckled the lap belt. All other markets including Canada received under-dash parcel shelves instead.
It's also hard to take the values listed at the bottom of the article seriously due to the errors contained in that graph. Contrary to that graph, the VR6 engine was not available on any vehicle in any market in the 1991. The only engine option for North American 1991 Corrado's was the G60 yet the graph lists that year being a VR6. 1992 was a split engine year with the early production Corrado's receiving the G60 engine and the later vehicles getting the VR6. However in Canada there was no 1992 Corrado model year at all. 1992 G60's were sold as late 1991 model's and the 1992 VR6's sold as early 1993's. The sticker prices listed are also a little low for Canada, but they seem to match the data for US sales. According to the documentation with my 1991 G60, the car originally sold for $29,990. There was little in the way of options for these cars (4 to be exact: leather or cloth, cold weather package, A/C, and sunroof) and all CDN models were shipped fully loaded because so few were shipped to Canada. You had to place a special order with the dealership if you wanted a Corrado with less than the full option load.
Finally the author, although writting for a Canadian automotive site, overlooked one of the most respected Corrado enthusiast/technical help sites worldwide..... namely the
Corrado Club of Canada. That is very disappointing considering the linked Corrado Club of America (listed simply as Corrado Club) is a dying site that hasn't been updated in 4 years and every thread on VW Vortex (also linked in the article) talking about trying to resurrect Corrado Club of America references the Corrado Club of Canada as the gold standard and example to follow.
While it is nice to see the automotive press giving coverage to niche vehicles like the Corrado, it would be even nicer to see Canadian media use Canadian sources, reference Canadian equipment trim levels, and verify Canadian pricing information in articles like this. Potential buyers rely on the information they find in articles such as this one to help them make their purchase decisions. By providing misleading and/or completely false information you are unfortunately doing your readers a great disservice.
Geoff Virgo (a.k.a. mithril)
Administrator - Corrado Club of Canada
