It's been a lovely week - got my hands on lots of nice cars. Got the Leon Cupra for the morning - and it's certainly a lot of bang for your bucks! Taking it out, got stuck in some slow moving traffic, so didn't get much idea at first. But then got it onto the motorway - and can now see why you all drop a 20v turbo into your Mk2s! In next to no time was doing 110 effortlessly, and only coming up to our turn-off meant didn't see how much more there was, but certainly felt like there would have been plenty. (Took the precaution of taking the Roadie with us ) Inside is not bad, though not as nice or as roomy as the Golf, and my son, who is 6' 4", even with the seat and wheel adjusted, had his leg touching the console <sp?> which he said would be annoying. The six CD changer fills up the glove compartment, but they have now changed the spec to a single CD/MP3 player on the dash. Coming back with big grins on our faces - but then he floored it into a roundabout - and massive understeer! He's a lot better driver than I am, and caught it well, but it caused us both a few butterflies! It also caught me out coming round a bend, when changing up to third and the turbo came in a bit faster than I was expecting, making me have to adjust the steering a bit quicker. That might have been down to me, as I'm used to no steering assistance. Nice car altogether, but I'm not quite convinced yet.... the new model will come out (next year?) and this one will be a bit old-fashioned then. Chap said they don't do run-out models like the Golfs, so no extra goodies for free. At about 15-16K, it's a lot of car and a lot of power for your money, and performance-wise, may match the Golf GTI when it comes out - at about 5K cheaper. He's still not made up his mind, and - because he can - he's going to try the Focus ST170 and the 1 series beemer, but they probably aren't real contenders. Anyway, this afternoon, I caught him photoshopping his personal number plate onto ........... the Golf 2.0 FSI I'm hoping that's the one he'll chose ('cos I'll inherit it when he's done with it) but I'm trying not to influence him if he really wants the Cupra. So I'll have to wait and see.....
The 170 I test drove was good fun to throw around, but it really did not feel anything near 170BHP. Just so slooooow....
Am tempted to try that, just for the hell of it. But he's restricted by price and insurance group for his company car. Wouldn't it be awful if he tried the R, loved it to bits, and then couldn't have it.....
