Popped over to France at half term. Didn't drive this time - we flew and picked up a hire car in Perpignan. An Opel Corsa.....but more on that in a moment.
Last time I did one of these threads I reckoned that the southern French were getting the hang of traffic lights. I was wrong. They haven't got it quite right yet. Stopped behind a C1. Light goes green. Sit there drumming fingers on the dashboard for ten seconds while they find a gear they like. Aaaaaaaand we're off.
Still. Who cares really? The place makes up for it with the distinct lack of stupidity in most other respects on the roads. And no Rovers still. Loving that.
Also still loving the somewhat relaxed attitude to speed limits down there. Provided you aren't driving like an utter dick, you can get away with some huge speeds. I watched a Ferrari 355 go tearing along the N9 at Ludicrous Speed™, blowing right by a gendarme who didn't give a toss - he wasn't driving in an unsafe manner, the weather was good and the road was clear. No harm, no foul. Over here, you'd be taken out and shot at dawn....
So, on the whole I'm still liking French roads. But the whole thing was ruined by that ******* Corsa. Dear God, what a pile of toss that car is....To clarify, this is the current shape one I'm talking about, that shares a platform with the Fiat Grande Punto. I've never known two cars that share platforms like that to be so different.
1) Interior - horrible design, horribly built out of crap materials. Five different colours, surface textures and grades of plastic on the dashboard and console, all of which were nasty. Sharp edges. Even the seat cloth was awful - nasty colour, nasty feel. The GP is leagues ahead.
2) Body - it's not as pretty as the GP, and if the few welds I could see on it were any indication then it isn't as well built either. You could hear the damned thing flex every time you went around a corner or over a bump. Very un-nerving. Even my Seicento feels more solid. Again, I've nver noticed this in the three GPs I've driven.
3) Engine and geabox - I'm not sure what they were thinking when they put those gear ratios in that 'box. The car had the 1.2 motor - which generally isn't that offensive. Not the greatest engine ever built (that would be the Chrysler 426 Hemi), but certainly not the worst. But Vauxhall/Opel, in their infinite wisdom, gave it gear ratios that I'm pretty sure are even shorter than the ones in my Seicento. So driving at autoroute speeds becomes almost intolerable. It also means that the car chews fuel like a jet fighter on combat power - the fuel economy was utterly pathetic. I've never driven a 1.2 GP, so I don't know if they're just as bad. But the 1.2 500 that Mum owns has better gear ratios than that sodding heap of Opel.
I'd go on - I really could go on all night about just how **** that car is - but.....well, it's a bit like kicking a puppy. After a while, you sort of feel sorry for the poor thing. It didn't ask to be built by morons. It seems rather unfair to take that fact and use it to crucify the poor little sod.
Feel free to use this thread for all your Corsa bashing needs, though.
Last time I did one of these threads I reckoned that the southern French were getting the hang of traffic lights. I was wrong. They haven't got it quite right yet. Stopped behind a C1. Light goes green. Sit there drumming fingers on the dashboard for ten seconds while they find a gear they like. Aaaaaaaand we're off.
Still. Who cares really? The place makes up for it with the distinct lack of stupidity in most other respects on the roads. And no Rovers still. Loving that.
Also still loving the somewhat relaxed attitude to speed limits down there. Provided you aren't driving like an utter dick, you can get away with some huge speeds. I watched a Ferrari 355 go tearing along the N9 at Ludicrous Speed™, blowing right by a gendarme who didn't give a toss - he wasn't driving in an unsafe manner, the weather was good and the road was clear. No harm, no foul. Over here, you'd be taken out and shot at dawn....
So, on the whole I'm still liking French roads. But the whole thing was ruined by that ******* Corsa. Dear God, what a pile of toss that car is....To clarify, this is the current shape one I'm talking about, that shares a platform with the Fiat Grande Punto. I've never known two cars that share platforms like that to be so different.
1) Interior - horrible design, horribly built out of crap materials. Five different colours, surface textures and grades of plastic on the dashboard and console, all of which were nasty. Sharp edges. Even the seat cloth was awful - nasty colour, nasty feel. The GP is leagues ahead.
2) Body - it's not as pretty as the GP, and if the few welds I could see on it were any indication then it isn't as well built either. You could hear the damned thing flex every time you went around a corner or over a bump. Very un-nerving. Even my Seicento feels more solid. Again, I've nver noticed this in the three GPs I've driven.
3) Engine and geabox - I'm not sure what they were thinking when they put those gear ratios in that 'box. The car had the 1.2 motor - which generally isn't that offensive. Not the greatest engine ever built (that would be the Chrysler 426 Hemi), but certainly not the worst. But Vauxhall/Opel, in their infinite wisdom, gave it gear ratios that I'm pretty sure are even shorter than the ones in my Seicento. So driving at autoroute speeds becomes almost intolerable. It also means that the car chews fuel like a jet fighter on combat power - the fuel economy was utterly pathetic. I've never driven a 1.2 GP, so I don't know if they're just as bad. But the 1.2 500 that Mum owns has better gear ratios than that sodding heap of Opel.
I'd go on - I really could go on all night about just how **** that car is - but.....well, it's a bit like kicking a puppy. After a while, you sort of feel sorry for the poor thing. It didn't ask to be built by morons. It seems rather unfair to take that fact and use it to crucify the poor little sod.
Feel free to use this thread for all your Corsa bashing needs, though.
