Last week I needed to travel from my office in central Stockholm, to my boss' house in one of the southern suburbs. Fixing computer problem at her house...this is a common occurance for IT personal in smaller companies. You get used to it....best to view it as a perk.
In order to make this trip I walked a few hundred meters to the nearest tunnelbana (read subway for your English speakers) station, waited the inevitable few minutes, took the next subway train one stop to T-centralen, the central hub of the Stockholm "metro". Then I walked another few hundred meters to the central train station, waiting a few more minutes and them climbed onto a commuter train. Very nice, very clean, very comfortable and fast enought that the trip only took 20mins. Now I was at the train station for the correct suburb, getting to her house was my own problem.
All sounds very civilised doesn't it? Perphaps a little strange if you are South African and not accustomed to a functional public transit system.
In my previous job in South Africa I also often travelled out to directors houses to fix their errant home computers. But it was a very different trip. I walked out into the parking lot, got into a car and drove there.
The car I used depended on what was avaliable, sometimes as a I perk I got to drive the directors car itself to their house. This afforded me the opportunity to drive such beyond-my-means machines as a Audi A4, MG TF160 or Land Rover Freelander. The rest of the time I used whatever company pool car was avaliable, occasionally a bakkie (read 1ton pickup truck) or a VW Golf but most often a uniquely South African car called a Toyota Tazz.
From 1988 (a year late) the Toyota Corolla E90 was built in South Africa. Thoughout it's career it was the top selling car in the country. In 1992 when the E100 was luanched in the rest of the world, the E90 continued with some modifications. It was finally laid to rest in 1995 and replaced by the E110. Or was it? The hatch back version was allowed to live on as an entry level overrun model. To avoid confusion and for other reasons it was renamed the Toyota Tazz and was built, with minor revisions (like finally getting a 5-speed 'box in 2001), until 2006.
A 5-dr hatch back version of a Toyota Corolla E90, with entry level spec, powered by a carburettor-fed 1300 SOHC 12v "2E" motor developing 55kw. It produced this peak power at a heady 6000rpm, which interestingly was also it's red-line. Torque peak is a bit of misnomer for this engine, it implies that there was some, so I forget the figure but it was high up in the rev range.
Most people drove/drive Tazzs very slowly, the combination of the peaky engine and heavyish body led to pedestrian performance. It was possible to drive it slightly less slowly, you just had to rev it right to the red line (or rather appoximately to the redline, there being neither rev counter nor rev limiter) and keep it there. Provided you didn't mind the appalling fuel consumption and sounds of mechanical distress that resulted, it was possible to make respectable progress. Well it would have been it wasnt for the handling, which was awful.
Predictable early onset understeer till almost right on the limit. I say almost because just as you felt you were reaching the limit, there was a sudden onset of terminal oversteer. Hmmm...no oversteer is the wrong word, I am complicating and adding needless and underserved richness to the handling experiance this car supplied, I shall rather put it like this: Just when you thought the ever-present understeer was beginning to result in a front-end washout, the back snapped around and you died. Or ended up in a ditch or something.
I am getting carried away here describing the car. I could carry on about the lack of features and the bland interior and...and, but you get the point, it was a dull car.
Driving the same route, to do the same boring job, in the MG TF160 however was amazingly different. Wow. The proverbial gokart. It really did feel like one. I have heard/read this description applied to many vehicles, from small FWD hatch backs and Minis to the Ford Bantam Mk3 bakkie. Rubbish! However, a small, light mid-engined rear wheel drive sports car IS almost a gokart. Pointy, bouncy, urgent, instant, seemingly without inertia.
The combination of the excellent brakes and exteme nimbleness allowed one to achieve hightly illegal speeds on tiny suburban roads. (provided one could see far ahead: I am not stupid.)
I remember fondly these trips-to-bosses-houses I did, I think I remember all of them. Nice long trips, as rich people in SA tend to live far out of town. (for good reason...) Obviously the best ones were the two I did in the MG TF160. The Audi A4 2.0TDI Tiptronic lags rather behind this, the Land Rover Freelander Td4, Golf 4 1.6 and Ford Ranger 1800 1-ton pickup must lie a great distance away even from the Audi, far towards the lower end of this scale, were the Tazz also resides.
However, and now I finally come to the point (finally!!!), long as this linear scale must be, great as the distance between MG TF160 and Toyota Tazz 130 is, it shrinks to a single dot, a point, a spec of ink on a chart, when one zooms out far enough to see the see the difference between the Tazz 130 and public transport!
The Tazz may stink, it may have been a lousy driver's car, but the worst car you can drive yourself is still whole worlds better than the best train you can't. (Nevermind all the standing and bloody waiting!)
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Friday 14 November 2008
Dredging the archives: Further on the 9000
More on our hypothetical 9000 driver...
Actually he loves the 9000 and chose it. He just told me to find some cars in a given price range and a given milage and all that. At a certain time. My final list contained the 9000, a 1994 Toyota Carina E 2.0, and a 1998 Octavia 1.8.
Considering that he feels the Carina E and Octavia Mk1 are boring enough to cause death he went to look at the SAAB first. And based on the condition and a spirited test drive, he just bought it.
The Carina E is a good car actually. Fast, powerful, reliable, and economical. (as opposed to most SA built Toyotas which could only tick one of those boxes.) But sitting in one does slowly rob one of the will to live.
The other factor that influenced him was my 900. Cost almost nothing, works all the time without trouble, is so full of character and so wonderfully made.
I also slightly distrust the 9000 based on the fact that I see so many FUBARed up ones driving around. And they WANT to rust. But the main effect of the Fiat/Alfa/Lancia involvement was actually to make them more conventional (much) than my 900 and so easier to work on
Actually he loves the 9000 and chose it. He just told me to find some cars in a given price range and a given milage and all that. At a certain time. My final list contained the 9000, a 1994 Toyota Carina E 2.0, and a 1998 Octavia 1.8.
Considering that he feels the Carina E and Octavia Mk1 are boring enough to cause death he went to look at the SAAB first. And based on the condition and a spirited test drive, he just bought it.
The Carina E is a good car actually. Fast, powerful, reliable, and economical. (as opposed to most SA built Toyotas which could only tick one of those boxes.) But sitting in one does slowly rob one of the will to live.
The other factor that influenced him was my 900. Cost almost nothing, works all the time without trouble, is so full of character and so wonderfully made.
I also slightly distrust the 9000 based on the fact that I see so many FUBARed up ones driving around. And they WANT to rust. But the main effect of the Fiat/Alfa/Lancia involvement was actually to make them more conventional (much) than my 900 and so easier to work on
Test and dredging the archives: On the SAAB 9000CC
Then he just bought another car (ok, I had something to do with this, I cant help it) a 1992 SAAB 9000CC. (don’t know if you know anything about 9000 bodyshapes but the CC is the shortest of the three…you got CC, CS and CD)
2.0 16v non-turbo, done about 106000kms, showroom condition, lovely grey velour interior, very nice onboard computer and computerised climate control (amazing for 1992, way ahead of what my 95 E36 320i had),
Massive inside.
Reminds me of my Mondeo quite frankly. (if my Mondeo had been machined out of a piece of solid steel, instead of 2nd hand coke cans, Tupperware and spit.) But even bigger inside, much smoother engine and doesn’t handle quite as well.
2.0 16v non-turbo, done about 106000kms, showroom condition, lovely grey velour interior, very nice onboard computer and computerised climate control (amazing for 1992, way ahead of what my 95 E36 320i had),
Massive inside.
Reminds me of my Mondeo quite frankly. (if my Mondeo had been machined out of a piece of solid steel, instead of 2nd hand coke cans, Tupperware and spit.) But even bigger inside, much smoother engine and doesn’t handle quite as well.
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