A question of taste...

So I get it, people like and buy different cars for different reasons. My own personal taste is no exception to the rule, I like sporty cars but not garishly expensive cars...and when I say sporty I mean that the manufacturer purposefully designed them that way...I am not a fan of 'mods' to give crappy little 1.0 litre boy racer type 15 year old car sporting credentials that it doesn't deserve seems somewhat pointless to me.

I own a Fiat Panda...however I did choose the sporty 100hp version...but why you might ask? Simple...it is better than the Fiat 500...which is a Panda underneath but with more bling, less room in the boot/back seats and a bigger price tag. As James May said the fiat 500 is an accessory, a bit like a hand bag..but the Panda is the better car for every other reason. So having looked at cars with similar power/spec the Panda was the cheapest to buy, lowest insurance group (which, when I bought it, made a MAJOR difference) and also they are relatively uncommon - and i like the feeling of marginal exclusivity. The panda 100hp comes with tinted rear windows, a nice spoiler, larger wheels/alloys than the standard panda, fog lights, a subtle bit of a body kit and is slightly lower than the standard Panda...a lot of this however only becomes really apparent when you park next to the standard Panda...and yes, I will actively seek out normal Panda's to park next to when I'm in a car park. It looks good, and has on all those accessories that you would want for your sporty little hot-hatchling. 

And in regards to my Panda, the aforementioned is just regarding the styling...inside it has slightly hugging seats and orange illuminating dash, a good CD player/stereo system, climate controlled air con AND last but not least...The Sport Button...not a big garish red power button but push it to see the word "Sport" appear on the dash followed by a flood of power as the engine revs more prolifically, the steering becomes super sharp and the engine fizzes with joy, begging you to rev the life out of it. 

Don't get me wrong, the Panda is not the be all and end all of cars...the suspension in the 100hp is ROCK hard...which is great to dart around corners, it handles great and sticks to the road really well...but when it's 7am in the morning and you're going to work half asleep and you hit a few sinks/potholes on the way it is very tiring. Also if you have the sport on a lot the mpg is not great...mine goes down to about 36mpg and as high as 44mpg if I do a long motorway journey and keep the sport off. Admittedly this is not stupidly low...but dissappointing when modern Diesel engines with more power can easily hit 60mpg without trying.

So...anyway...driving today and I get behind a fiesta (at least from what I could tell it once was a Fiesta) I'll give the guy credit that the colour was nice (an unusual grey-ish green colour) and it looked like decent paint job from the rear...what killed me was the wheels and suspension. He had clearly fitted larger wheels...too large, they stuck out around 2 inches from the side of the car and the alloys were red...RED? On a greyish green car? It didn't match to say the least. But the final straw was the suspension...it was so low that I could actually see the wheels touching the bodywork as he turned them...I considered following him to see him hit a speed bump or pot hole so I could laugh at the inevitability of him loosing some trim or bottoming out the over lowered suspension. 

I almost crashed with laughter.

And this brings me around to cost...I'm sure you can pick up an old corsa/fiesta/polo etc. for cheap...but buying stereos, tinted windows, body panals, re spraying the car, buying bigger wheels and alloys...then things like turbos and extra cooling for the engine you've added the turbo to...all of this costs SOOOOO much money! Why not just save all your pennies together and just buy a decent car in the first place? Something like the new Fiesta ST...better fuel economy...better power, engineered correctly not just stuck on with gaffa tape and much much MUCH better styling. Ford will have spent THOUSANDS of pounds on designing there ST the be fast, efficient, well designed, comfortable etc. if you think you can do a better job with a second hand turbo and some fibreglass body kit then you are so sorely mistaken. 

And you know if that guy I saw in his 10 year old fiesta with the wheels that can't turn properly found himself at a set of traffic lights with a proper Fiesta ST he would be shamed by its beauty, jealous of its power and luxury and I would put money on the proper ST beating it flat out...because even if he's added a turbo to give it stupid power it won't be able to sustain it for long as that old engine just wasn't built for it...it will inevitably overheat, or explode...but the proper version will go on and on. 

Additional note. If you are in the Peterlee/Shotton area you can quite often get a glimpse of this guy and his kitted out car hanging around A supermarket car park of an evening...his mates have equally ridiculous cars...I simply used him as a perticularly bad example!