As James May said during a particularly good episode of Top Gear, a small engined Italian car should be driven like the valves are about to pop out of the bonnet. I recently had the good fortune to drive a smaller engined car, a 1.2 litre Vauxhall Corsa in fact.
Granted, in terms of raw figures, it’s not a powerplant that is going to set the world on fire. However, what’s more important, what is written in the brochure or how it actually feels? I decided to drive the car how I felt it should be driven, namely using the full rev range to keep the car in the power band. The result? A whole lot of fun.
Driven in an economical fashion the car will do reasonably well in terms of miles per gallon. But keep it up there close to the top of the revs and you’ll have much more fun. The car handled nimbly, the engine was eager and pulled well even with four people on board.
Overall? It’s almost enough to have one fall in love with driving all over again. Though it still wasn’t quite enough to make me take the plunge to a smaller engine just yet (the cost of buying a car is prohibitive to me at this time). In time though when fuel prices go up even further? Who knows. At least I do know that I don’t have to completely forgo the fun factor just yet. In many ways, it confirms what I’ve been saying very recently. Manufacturers have got it spot on with this trend of a smaller engine, especially when mated to a good turbo, leading to wonderful things…
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