A late night triple car review….
Today I had to drive the Sebring to the storage yard to collect the Fiesta, to take that for a valet and then go and fetch the Audi TT, which we used for a Hotwheels hunt and then a late night blast to find Mr Beast chocolate bars.
I’ve been completely loving the Chrysler Sebring since I bought it. It’s everything a Geoff car should be, it’s oddball, it’s rare, it’s unusual. It’s big enough to transport the kids, practical enough to take to the tip and cool enough for car shows. Twice we have been waved onto the front row of local car shows just because you never see these early Sebrings.
This car is 1 of maybe 5 or 6 in the country, and the only one in this rare blue colour. The Sebring is much maligned, mostly for the California Rental Car vibes, but all the reasons it’s hated for not being a Mustang in the USA make it a really attractive proposition in the UK. Yes, it’s a big lazy American car with a hastily designed silhouette bolted on top of some Mitsubishi running gear, but what’s not to like about that?!
The tiny headlights, borrowed from a Chrysler Voyager, and the small but open gaping grille, combined with the low slung front and slightly raked rear, with the completely flat lines of the car make it quite a good looking thing. It’s big without being huge, yet inside there really is ample space. I love it. The seats are like armchairs and to drive it you sort of develop a flow, a low and lazy style of driving that’s very….Well, American.
With your left arm resting on the big arm rest on the door, you sit right on the edge of the car and you sort of slouch as you go. It’s naturally lazy and there’s something really great about that, it’s a very relaxing place to be.
In terms of the performance, the 2.5 litre V6 engine has plenty of it, and as mine has a meaty back box, it has a sense of occasion too. Sure, it’s not a rocket ship, but it’ll go when you push it, and make a lot of noise. Far too much noise when you’re climbing a hill, it does drone on and on…. But overall the auto box and lazy gearing and V6 engine make a good combination, especially if you don’t mind 23 miles per gallon. Yowch.
So we can conclude that the Sebring is an attractive oddity here in the UK, it’s a cheap show car but an expensive daily due to the fuel consumption. Oh, the brakes are rubbish too, but that’s because it’s American, it’s heavy and it’s running drum brakes on the back. Yup, drum brakes on a V6 powered convertible from 1996.
So we cruised on down to the storage yard in the Sebring, with the roof off and the heaters on, and collected the Fiesta.
Now the little Fiesta couldn’t be more of a different car. This is a little slice of the past, back in the days when cars were cheap and simple. No screens, no technology, no stop start, no electric hand brake, no reverse sensors, no apple car play, no built in sat nav… nothing at all, and it’s beautiful.
The 1.25 Zetec engine is an absolute peach, a rev little thing that you can ring the neck of all day long and it’ll still fire up and ask for more. And fire up it did, of course, despite the fact that I’d left it parked in the yard for the best part of 2 months. Maybe longer. The last time I used it was the the day I took it to the dyne after replacing the air filter with an aftermarket K&N performance unit. We did the dyno and then I parked it up and forgot about it.
Key in the ignition and it fired straight away – there isn’t any of that pesky technology to drain the battery when you leave the car for long periods.
So what have we got inside? Well, my retro JVC player from about 2005 that I bought especially to go in the car, and some wind up windows. And a clock. The digital read out will tell you how many total miles the car has done, and you can reset the trip to calculate fuel economy. You’ve got a temp gauge, a rev meter, a speedo and a fuel gauge. The window wipers require a click up or down on the right stalk, and the left stalk handles the indicators. There’s a horn, some hazard lights and a clock. Did I mention the clock? Yes, a clock. That you can change by simply pressing a few simple buttons.
The air and ventilation is about as simple as it gets – three dials, one for how hot you want the air, one for where you want the air and one for how fast you want the air. Why did we ever move away from this system?! It was perfect and didn’t need changing!
Accelerating out onto the main road, the steering is tight, the brakes are tirght, the suspension is tight, my god, it feels like the perfect car. I cannot fault the beautiful simplicity of the Fiesta.
I’ve collected this car to take it to a potential buyer, but it only takes 100 yards on the road for me to wonder why on earth I’m considering parting with it. I don’t need it, it’s just money sat in a storage unit that I’m paying for going slowly more rusty with each passing month but like the Sebring, I can’t find another. I keep looking… Sure, you can buy a rusty 5 door mk4 Fiesta but not in Pepper Red and not a 3 door and not with the iconic four spoke wheels and not with relatively low mileage…. So why would I sell this?! I decide to leave it up to fate because I can’t make the decision for myself, although as we park it up I’m already absolutely sold on keeping it as a ’spare’ car. If you run old cars like I do, there will always come a time when one of them has broken and you need a backup that’ll just work – and that’s what makes a Mk4 Fiesta so good. It just works.
We lock the car (using the key, it does have central locking but bizarrely on a MK4 Fiesta there’s no internal way of opening the boot, so to get in the boot you have to unlock it on the key… my only gripe about the car) and we stroll up the road to collect the TT.
Now the Audi TT is a hairdressers car that was only ever bought by gay people and killed everyone who change lanes at more than 112mph thanks to the lack of rear end downforce.
Good, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get in the Audi TT.
Firstly, the TT has an old school simplicity that’s backed up by Audi quality. Everything is solid even though there’s a lot of plastic. The MK1 Audi TT came with the best seats known to man, and as the seasons begin to change from summer to autumn, the TT is the perfect car to swap to. Hear me out here…
An Audi TT coupe is like a cocoon. There’s no sunroof, I guess because they did a two seat roadster with no roof, and inside it’s all black – but not in a depressing way. Now I’ve spent time with an Audi TT in the past and climbing into this one is like pulling on your favourite jumper, your favourite winter wooly top that you’ve left in the back of the wardrobe whilst you’ve been galavanting around all summer.
The TT is comfortable and warm, there’s just something about the interior of an Audi TT that makes me want to drive very, very far. The steering is nice and weighty, the gearbox is precise and oh-my-god that Turbo is a fine thing. We pull off the driveway out onto the road and I’m staggered at just how well this car handles. There really can’t be many cars in the sub £2,000 bracket that can corner like a TT.
Now when I first posted about this car, everyone said ‘Is it a 225?’, because the original Audi TT came in two flavours, 180hp and 225hp. The 225hp usually came with larger wheels and had a twin exit exhaust where the 180 only had the solo exhaust pipe.
Now prior to today I’d only driven the 225hp, and the 3.2 litre automatic. Out of those two, my pick was the 225 – I always found the 3.2 to be a little too much in such a small car. It was a license loser.
A decade ago my brother leant me his black Audi TT 225hp when I was doing a stint working for Relentless Energy Drink, and I once set the unofficial record for driving between the Bath and West Show Ground and Newquay Town Centre. Seriously, I don’t think I could have done that journey any faster in any car, and that’s the point with the Audi TT.
You see to make really solid, consistently fast progress, you need more than a big engine and a load of power – in fact, you need less than a big engine and a load of power. What you need is the perfect package. To make really solid progress on real roads, you need a small car with four wheel drive, perfectly planted handling that’s completely reassuring, six gears and a turbo.
Anyone can drive fast on a motorway, and sure, bring your Bugatti and you’ll probably beat me in my Audi TT in a straight line, but combine some A roads, B roads and motorways with a few country lanes and a coastal stretch and the Audi TT is unbeatable. This is why people love cars like the Subaru Impreza, because in the real world, you can make astonishing progress relative to their power output and price point.
Even with just 180hp it takes about 10 seconds for me to be grinning ear to ear, we’re flying through the back roads of Worcestershire and all my usual roads are being swallowed by the TT.
The handling is spot on, the brakes are good, the steering is beautiful and the visibility is good – the way the roofline slopes down around you it’s more like putting on a crash helmet than sitting in a car, it feels safe, everything feels close and within reach and it takes no time at all to familiarise yourself with the car.
I’m with my 7 year old and he’s desperate to go on a Hot Wheels hunt, so after stopping for a quick lime soda at a lovely pub, we continue out B road blast to a town where there’s a Smiths Toys to see if we can find out treasure. The drive there is divine, and sure enough, we strike gold – there’s a Fast and Furious Five Pack which includes the Toyota Supra from the first move, complete with orange paintwork and correct decals – What a score I’ve been looking for this car forever. My lad chooses an Alfa Romeo 155 touring car with matching lorry, so once we’ve paid we’re back in the TT for the run home.
Now my good friend who I had the car from has a worse sticker fetish than me, and he likes to put the personal touch on his cars. This time’s gone for blue Quattro and Audi badges on the side of a black TT, so once we’re home I get busy removing the stickers and confirm the car looks much better without it.
After we’ve played with our Hotwheels for a while, the wife gets back from work, Small Geoff is tired and winding down so I make my excuses and take the Audi for a blast on my own. This time I’m on home turf, on roads I know well and out looking for a suitable photo location.
You can drive an Audi TT a lot harder when it’s not equipped with the optional panicking 7 year old, so I really wind it on as we climb the long sweeping hills around where we live. I’m having so much fun that I’m dreaming of a moment when the kids are back at school and I can make one of those road trip videos to the Welsh Valleys, and suddenly I’m struck by the real depth of the problem here.
I bought the Chrysler Sebring on a whim and it quickly became part of the family. I bought the Ford Fiesta in a hurry and soon after announced I’ll never part with it, and here I am trying to have a quick fling with an Audi TT and I’m already making it a long term relationship – when you’re planning road trips and looking at private numberplate, wondering about new sticker sets and shopping for wheels on marketplace, you know it’s all over – the car is under your skin and that’s that.
So here we have three completely different cars, all with completely different merits.
We’ve got tiny little 1.25 3 door that’s a hoot to drive and easy to own, a big lazy American soft top for schlepping around the B roads and posing at car shows and a totally purposeful yet completely usable little German that I can’t believe it’s taken me so long o actually buy.
For reasons of space and practicality, they can’t all stay, but I don’t really want to get rid of any of them… And of course the funny thing is, the combined purchase price, in fact, the combined amount these cars owe me all in is still less than five grand, and significantly less than the national average that ‘normal’ people spend on a second hand car.
People often say to me why don’t you buy newer cars, or more expensive cars… and the honest answer is why would I need to do that?!
The late 1990s and early 2000s gave us peak car – cars that aren’t technologically complex, cars that you can service at home, that you can run on a budget but that are interesting and entertaining and FUN.
Why would you go and buy a Nissan Juke on finance when you can get a good Audi TT for a couple of grand?!
People are stressing out about buying family cars and looking at miles per gallon and annual road tax and budgeting £20k on a car when you could take a little risk, have a little fun and save yourself an absolute packet by just stepping out of your comfort zone… But there again I guess we really should keep encouraging people to buy those second hand
Nissan Jukes on dealer finance for ten grand and more… It frees up the bottom of the market for us car enthusiasts to hoover up all the fun stuff.
So which would you keep…?