• Five-door body aids access
• Rear passenger, boot space on par with rivals
• Not enough interior storage space

How much space is there?

An acceptable amount for the class. Vauxhall completely redesigned the Corsa for the current generation, making it lower and longer than its predecessor. It’s fractionally narrower, too, although it’s actually been styled to look wider. Vauxhall also increased the Corsa’s wheelbase by pushing the wheels out to the corners of the car, which has liberated more room for passengers and luggage.

We found space in the rear is merely average for the supermini class. You get about as much as a Ford Fiesta and Renault Clio, but not as much as a Skoda Fabia – the supermini rear seat space champion. A six-foot adult can sit behind a similarly sized driver, but they won’t be able to stretch out. Children should be fine, though.

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Space in the front is generally fine, with decent amounts of leg and headroom. However, really tall drivers may find it difficult to get into the front seats. That’s because, when the driver’s seat is pushed a long way back, the backrest ends up behind the B-pillar, which makes getting in rather awkward – and impedes visibility.  

Boot space and storage

The Vauxhall Corsa’s boot capacity measures 309 litres, six litres bigger than the Ford Fiesta’s. However, there are supermini with much bigger boots including the Renault Clio the SEAT Ibiza, which have 391-litre and 355-litres of space respectively.

More annoyingly, the Corsa’s boot isn’t particularly clever. There’s no false floor that reveals a hidden storage area and the rear seats merely flop onto their squabs, leaving a sizable hump in the boot floor.

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Interior storage is below par for the class, too, which we found particularly irksome. There aren’t many storage bins, and the ones you do get are tiny. The glovebox is small, the door bins are shallow and the storage box in the centre armrest is barely big enough to hold a wallet. The tray in the centre console isn’t deep enough to accommodate a modern smartphone, either. Rivals such as the Skoda Fabia have much cleverer interiors with more places to put things.

Is it easy to park?

Yes. The Corsa is a small with relatively large windows though, as with so many cars these days, thick roof pillars mean the view out of the back is great Still, all models have rear parking sensors, GS spec adds a reversing camera and top-grade Ultimate model gains front parking sensors.

Check out the car’s dimensions on our Vauxhall Corsa specs page.

Safety

• Plenty of standard safety kit
• But only a four-star Euro NCAP rating
• Matrix LED headlights a supermini first

Car safety body Euro NCAP gave the Vauxhall Corsa a four-star safety rating when it was assessed in 2019. It’s not uncommon for superminis to miss a full five stars, but the likes of the Ford Fiesta and Renault Clio do meet that mark.

The Corsa lost a star for its seats. Euro NCAP testers found that the head restraints didn’t protect front occupants from whiplash well enough. But you do get a lot of standard safety features including:

• Autonomous emergency braking
• Lane keeping assist
• Traffic sign recognition
• Driver attention monitor
• LED headlights
• Two sets of Isofix child seat mounts on the outer rear seat

The range-topping Ultimate model features Vauxhall’s upgraded ‘Intellilux’ Matrix LED adaptive headlights. They ‘cut out’ oncoming cars from the light beam pattern, illuminating more of the road without dazzling oncoming drivers. We’ve sampled them and found they work very well.

Watch the Vauxhall Corsa’s crash test video