After a long hiatus, and due to the fact that my class has been postponed today (yay!
), it brings me great pleasure to finally bring out a new edition of...
BAP_Shockz's Car of the Week Experience!!!
This week's car.....
the Fiat Coupe Turbo Plus '00!
Whew, it's been a while, hasn't it? Today marks about a year and a bit since I moved to Japan. In that time, I've seen plenty of different, interesting, and sometimes just plain weird cars here.
Gonna be somewhat sensible this week however, as a friend came to me one day, telling me he wants to sell his sports car because he's starting a family, and the car was getting too expensive to run. Fair enough, he wants me to drive around and make sure the car is fit for selling. I'm okay with that.
So what's the car?
....Right. An Italian sports car from the turn of the 21st century. This is probably gonna be a bit harder than I thought.
Let's start with the facts. The Fiat Coupe Turbo Plus is the most powerful version of the Coupe, that was first launched in 1993. The year 2000 marked the end of Coupe production, and what a better way to end a good run than with this.
The engine is a 2.0L inline-5 engine, that puts out 217hp. Respectable, I must say. 0-60 is done in a brisk 6.3 seconds, and it'll go all the way up to 155mph. Also very respectable. The body, designed by Chris Bangle, of Bangle-butt fame, is.......well, let's just say my opinions are split.
Starting up the engine for the first time, I have to say I'm actually impressed. The engine sounds throaty and has an audible rasp. Alright, good first impression. I went driving on the highway one night, suspiciously devoid of any other cars, and started stretching its legs.
Okay, I know it's a turbo, but it revs up to only 6500rpm? Mildly disappointing, but it still sounds great. I'm surprised that my buddy has kept this car so well-maintained, it runs as if it was still brand new. I had no problems with reliability at all, even though I was running the car for about 6 hours.
But enough of that, you want to know how it drives. That's what we're all here for.
Well, it's really tidy on the highway, even with the traction control off. It's quite forgiving, and the understeer is not intrusive or frustrating to deal with. It's a very well sorted chassis. There's enough torque to help the Coupe exit corners quickly, and overall, it just feels nice to drive. Nothing special, nothing out of this world, it's just nice.
The 6 hours blew by like a breeze, and in the wee hours of the morning, as the sun rose above the horizon, I decided to take it to a mountain pass, to really get a feel for the handling.
I'll be perfectly frank, I am not a fan of FF cars. I like the Civics and the 2nd gen Focus RS, but that's about it. While the Coupe won't change my mind about FF cars, it's well sorted enough for a nice run through the pass. It holds a good line, and I had decent fun with it.
It's rare to find a car like this in mint condition, especially when Italian/French cars in the early 00's were notorious for their unreliability. I decided to buy the car from my friend, right then and there, to add to my collection, because where else are you gonna find a Fiat Coupe in Japan this easily?
Overall, it's a sleeper, but just barely. It's surprisingly a neat and plucky sports car. 6/10
Bonus:
Here's a few pictures from when I bought a 280Z for the fun of it, and tuned it for Wangan racing. It's not ridiculously fast, but hey, 180mph is something I won't complain about.
What a shame to miss out on these
- so neither raced COTW online nor contributed long reviews as I used to. Hope to do better in 2016.
