The new Vauxhall Corsa is an extremely slippery car

There’s a new Vauxhall Corsa coming. Which is pretty big news, at least as far as UK roads and car parks are concerned. We buy dizzying numbers of the things, and if the new, more Peugeot-y one is as good as we’re led to believe, we might buy even more this time around.

The latest boast? That, with a drag coefficient of 0.29Cd, it’s the slipperiest car in its class. Wonderful news for fuel economy, which could be as much as five per cent better than before thanks to aerodynamics alone.

It’s been achieved by some really quite supercar-ish measures. The underbody betwixt engine and rear axle is flat panelling, a move that smooths out the airflow beneath the car, while there’s an active shutter at the front that’ll close off cooling vents to the engine when they’re not needed, better directing that pesky air around the car. A dinky rear spoiler at the back completes a package of aero bits that contribute to its 0.29Cd figure.

Which is nearly as good as the 0.26Cd famously recorded by the old Vauxhall Calibra, at the time bagging it the title of world’s most aerodynamic production car. Seriously. The Calibra. So while the new Corsa might have more than a whiff of France about it, rest assured it’s still got some Vauxhall at its core.

Enough to make you want one over its Peugeot 208 cousin? Not to mention one of the eleventy thousand other small car options out there…

Ten more things we've learned about the new Corsa