My exciting day on Monday

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Thu 10 Feb 2005 15:40
My exciting day on Monday - Blue {P}
Well, work sent me on a bit of a driving day on Monday, I got to drive:-

Fiesta ST, XR2 (E reg), and XR2i (K reg)

Mondeo STTDCi (wow) and Porsche Carrera

New Focus
New Golf
C4
1 Series
New AStra

All the above were driven in 3 seperate stages.

The Fiesta was a fantastic as I was expecting, what suprised me most was that the E reg XR2 drove much better on the rally track than the K reg one.

The ST TDCi was fantastic, so, so powerful, I would have one any day of the week, in 4th gear it outran the Porsche thanks to it's torque, but I suppose if they were both driven properly the Porsche would win.

What suprised me most was our competitor comparisons, naturally the Focus handled superbly, we did slalom tests, sped it round a race track and also did an emergency lane change with professional instrusctors at our sides.

I found the BMW was on a par with the Focus, although I know that it made use of it's ESP once to keep things in line, very nice car though.

C4 was nice enough, and it handled reasonably, although the door handle had already broken on our test car...

Golf, nice handling almost as good as Focus, but the interior was yack.

Anyway, all the above passed the tests fairly competently, now we come to the Astra with it's torsion beam rear suspension. Lovely. I did the emergency lane change through the same cones and at the same speed as the other cars, and the Astra completely lost it, the car was completely out of control and we ended up landing sideways in a bush where all the other cars just continued on...

So, that was my day, quite good fun, and very, very informative, I no longer take the handling of my various Ford's for granted... :-)

Blue
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Thu 10 Feb 2005 17:46
My exciting day on Monday - richy
Glad you enjoyed your self.
Just goes to show you can have as much fun in something cheap with a carefree attitude as you can in something much more expensive. Reminds me of an early EVO test of the then £1,000,000 + V.A.T Mercedes CLK-GTR. The bottom line was £££'s does'nt always equal fun.

Suprised you did'nt get on with the mk5 Astra. I admit I have'nt driven one yet but spend a bit of time in a mk4 pool car at work and it impressed me when I first drove it. Handling is never lacking on the road, maybe only in very extreme circomstances on the track like you described. Certainly good enough for 99% of people that have them.
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Thu 10 Feb 2005 23:17
My exciting day on Monday - Bill Payer
the Astra completely lost it

Naughty car!!
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Fri 11 Feb 2005 11:12
My exciting day on Monday - Happy Blue!
I'd love to drive a 2CV or Fiat 126 at full tilt. Great fun and you can't lose your licence.
--
Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Fri 11 Feb 2005 12:41
My exciting day on Monday - Blue {P}
Pleased I'm not the only one that thinks so! :-)

Seriously though it just shows that in a real world situation, like an emergency lane change on a motorway, your average joe driver, which is all I am, would have more trouble keeping an Astra in line than they would many other cars in it's class.

Fantastic fun though, there's nothing quite like crashing someone else's car! :-)

Blue
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Fri 11 Feb 2005 16:26
My exciting day on Monday - NickCa
Where did you do this day? My FIL is 60 later the year and want to get him a driving 'experience'. Most of them seem really expensive and you only get about 20 minutes driving (Rockingham/Silverstone). Yours sounds much better. Any suggestions?
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