Over the decades I’ve bought many cars, but this time it was all different – very different.
Rather than carefully developing a shortlist, selecting the car and then driving it, this time I didn’t even know quite what should be on the shortlist! Instead, I was starting at the other end of things - I had some definite criteria for the use the car was to be put to. Criteria like what then?
Well, newly living at country Bungendore in New South Wales, just over the border from Canberra where I work, I needed a car to do the daily commute. The trip each way is about 45 kilometres - about 50 per cent on a rural, winding and oftentimes hilly road, about 30 per cent on freeway, and the remainder on good suburban roads.
I’d been driving my hybrid Honda Insight, and while it might (still!) be the world’s most economical car, the short suspension travel and relatively noisy interior were wearing. Plus, after years of working whatever hours I liked, being constrained to an office for a (nominally) nine ‘til five job meant that I wanted a car that was fun to drive – fun on the way to work and fun on the way home. And while I may think the Insight one of the most incredible cars ever produced, it’s not a sporty, fun car.
So I was going to keep the Insight, but buy something in addition.
But what?
I decided I wanted the car to be safe, with stability control and four (or preferably six) airbags. I wanted it to be fuel-efficient, to be relatively small and to cost between 15,000 and 25,000 Australian dollars. I also wanted it to have decent performance – so a 0-100 km/h time in (say) the eights. But performance alone wasn’t a huge criterion; in the sort of driving I was doing, a car that had relatively low power but which could be quickly ‘flowed’ along a twisty road would be fine.
My first thought was the Ralliart Colt. When I reviewed the car in AutoSpeed (see Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart) I raved at its performance, its seats, its brakes, and how the factory makeover was so extensive that it included a much stiffer-than-standard body, heavily revised suspension and a host of other features, including the fitment of the turbo engine. However, the Colt has just two airbags. And, interestingly, only the earlier Ralliart Colts have all the good gear; later ones (identifiable by the black wheels) lost the ex-Evo seats and (apparently) the stiffer body.
I found one of the earlier cars, priced from the private buyer at about $17,000. But when I drove the car I was strangely unimpressed; perhaps it was because the road was damp and the car proved rather skatey before the stability control intervened, or maybe it was the downmarket feel of the car - the Ralliart Colt is very clearly based on a much cheaper model. The performance also seemed flatter than I remembered it. But the steering, ride and seats were great.
Then I thought of another car – the Suzuki Swift Sport – and I found a brand new demonstrator to drive. It needed to be a near-new car because, in just the opposite way to the Ralliart (where older = better), the earlier Swift Sports don’t have stability control - now it’s standard. The car also boasts no less than six airbags.
I hadn’t previously driven even a normal Swift, but the incredibly well sorted Ignis Sport (see
Suzuki Ignis Sport Test) had me very interested in its younger and more sophisticated brother.
On the road the non-turbo Swift Sports needed lots of revs (and to cater for this, was very short-geared) but it handled well and had an integrated feel to it. It was cohesive and like the Ignis, really well-sorted in terms of steering, brakes and suspension. But at $25,000 driveaway, it was right at the top end of my price range. And the packaging was also pretty weird, with a tiny boot that belies the bulbous proportions of the body.
Hmmm - what else, what else?
Well, what about a Civic Hybrid? When I’d originally tested the car (see Honda Civic Hybrid) I’d been a bit lukewarm, but with the vehicles now available in the low twenties, the value paradigm has since changed substantially.
I found a private sale Civic Hybrid and drove it. I liked the refinement, the body design (gee, these Civics – all of them, not just the hybrid – have great body packaging) but found the steering, handling and general on-road feel a bit lacking. But then again, all that I then needed to do was to start bolting VTi Civic suspension bits and pieces into the Hybrid... That would allow the ‘quick flow’ approach to cornering, where the lack of outright power wouldn’t be a problem.
But the car I drove was priced at $22,000, and then I’d have to add the cost of a pretty substantial suspension upgrade. But then again, the Civic has ESP and six airbags and would clearly be the most economical of the cars. It was also beautifully built – light-years ahead of the Colt.
Put that lot together and the Civic was at the top of the list.
So far, anyway...
Mulling over all of this one evening, I decided to take a different tack. For best fuel economy and performance, I needed a 2 litre (or less) turbo car. No Impreza WRX had enough airbags, and that also felled other contenders at the post. Stability control (ie the lack of it) also threw a few others out of the ‘potentials’ list – but what about Saab?
It’s fashionable in certain car circles to laugh at Saab, and now, with its apparent demise, the chuckles can be heard far and wide. But, before they started to buckle under a crippling lack of GM investment, the company produced some brilliant cars. Was the 2003 model 9.3 one of those machines, I wondered? I hadn’t driven one, but had owned a much earlier 900 series turbo. That car had made a huge impression with its rock-solid behaviour on difficult roads. I looked up the press pack for the 9.3 release and was impressed – the 9.3 was based on GM Vectra underpinnings (and I always liked Vectras), ran a 2 litre turbo engine (with the turbo tuned for excellent bottom-end torque), and all models had six airbags and stability control.
But of course, any Saab 9.3 I could afford would be one of the earlier models. And here in Australia, all older European cars tend to break things...
I found an auto trans 9.3 Linear to drive and was impressed. The five-speed auto had tiptronic-style controls, the level of luxury was very high, and the instruments and controls well sorted. The car also had excellent packaging, and came in at around $19,000. But it also had an indefinable ‘slightly old’ feeling; not in the styling so much as the driving. It may have been because I had been driving cars with much lower distances under their wheels, but this Saab – despite having under 80,000 kilometre son the clock – felt a bit loose and creaky. Would they all drive like this, I wondered?
Plus the Saab was getting rather closer than I needed to a ‘family car’: my wife’s vehicle satisfies family duties adequately.
Hmmm, what to do, what to do?
I actually pencilled-in two Saab 9.3 appointments for Sunday – the day that would prove to be my last of looking. One of the 9.3 models was a top-of-the-line auto Aero; it was $23,000. The other was a much cheaper, low kilometres, 9.3 Vector manual 5-speed; I actually felt that this was very likely to be the car I’d buy. If it drove as a ‘youngish’ car that reflected its kilometres, I’d be likely plonking down a deposit.
But fate doesn’t work that way; that Sunday morning, neither Saab owner answered their mobiles. So instead I went and looked at a car that had been the bottom of all my lists – the Volkswagen Polo GTi. Sure it had a 1.8 litre turbo, six airbags and stability control. But its (standard government test) fuel economy was nothing great for such a small car, and the tartan seat upholstery in the only local one on sale had me gagging.
In the flesh it looked good, and when I sat in the excellent seats I couldn’t see their awful cloth patterns. However the doors shut with a clang about $20,000 removed from the superb closure sounds of the Saab and (interestingly) the Honda Civic Hybrid, and rear seat room in the two-door car was decidedly tight.
But on the road the Polo was just fabulous.
Supple suspension, excellent stability control (the road was again slightly wet), good steering weight, brilliant low-rpm torque and decent outright acceleration. In red it also looked good, fitted the ‘small car’ criteria and at $19,000, was pretty well in the middle of the price range.
I bought it.
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