Oh boy, it's time for...
BAP_Shockz's Car of the Week Experience
This week's car..
the '81 Isuzu Piazza XE!
After the travesty that was the Crossfire, I spent the next 3 weeks preparing for a move to a more, automotive-friendly country. I spent the next 3 weeks getting all my stuff ready and renewing my visa to plan for this big move. So, where could I have gone? Obviously to one of my favourite countries, the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan.
I love this country, I really do. Touching down in Japan, with the nice cold winter wind blowing on the back of my coat, it feels a brilliant time to be alive. I bought a place in Tokyo (and boy, was that difficult), so after a week of settling down and getting used to everything being new, I decided that I now needed a car to get around. International driving license in hand, and with about 2 million yen to spare, I headed for a used car dealership.
There were plenty of mint condition cars, some of them not more than half a decade old. Depreciation must have hit them hard. I saw Mitsubishis, Toyotas, even the odd Mitsuoka or two. They were all rather cheap for what they were, but still out of my reach. I proceeded to continue searching, when I hit the classic car turf. Good looking classic Japanese cars were aplenty here, as I grinned from ear to ear, continuously searching.
Then....I saw it. A car, an old one. It looked rather derpish, yet subtle. I looked at the badging in front. An Isuzu?? This car was from a time where Isuzu made rather wonderful cars, the Bellett GT-R comes to mind. But this isn't a Bellett. It's a Piazza. It's rather unassuming, and from the specs sheet I was given, it wasn't very fast either. But none of that matters, it's something I could afford, and therefore, something I would take home with me.
Driving out of the dealership and into the streets of Tokyo, which were surprisingly empty this time, I took time to spread the little Piazza's legs a bit.
Oh dear, this engine leaves something to be desired. It's not nearly punchy enough, and it suffers immensely from feeling like it has little to no torque in the lower revs. It doesn't really feel like it has 140 horsepower to give to me. To add to that, the gearing on this thing is just....bad. It's very hard to shift down in turns because you always run the risk of staying on the redline when you shift down. Could be very dangerous for the clutch and engine. The gears also felt way too long, especially the last 2 gears. I can honestly say, driving this thing over two days, I can count the number of times I hit 5th gear on one hand.
The saving grace though is the chassis. Okay, it has quite a bit of body roll, I will admit, but it feels nice to throw into a corner, and come out of it with your tail sticking out a little bit. It's not plagued heavily by understeer like the Crossfire, so it's alright in my book. It's quite fun.
Now that I've gotten my first car in this country, it's time to do what I enjoy doing the most, take it to some Japanese race tracks and trash the hell out of it. I decided to pay a visit to the short, technical Tsukuba Circuit, an 82 kilometre drive up north, to the Ibaraki Prefecture. The miles were easily chewed up by the Piazza, and it felt nice to sit in.
I got to Tsukuba, and surprisingly it was also empty. Weird. Anyway, I get clearance to drive a few laps around it, and I get to see how this thing handles on a track.
Oops. I braked too late on the first hairpin and proceeded to lock up the brakes and come so very close to hitting a wall. No matter, it's not badly damaged, so it's time to brush it off and keep driving. The chassis of the car is alright, I like it quite a bit. The tires also grip relatively well, although it's very easy for the brakes to lock up and the tires lose traction for a bit. The downside of not having ABS.
After throwing it around the track for a couple of hours, I can safely say, it's not the worst car around. Obviously it's not the best either, but it's good fun in corners. However, I wasn't satisfied, and decided to then go to another course, 464 km west, in the Mia Prefecture. This is gonna be a long trip. Halfway through I slept at a hotel, and proceeded on my merry way, the Piazza all happy to oblige.
Suzuka is a highly technical track, and one of the longest in Japan. While Tsukuba showed me the best of what this little Piazza can do, Suzuka brought out the worst. The engine is gutless, it has absolutely no punch, either at low or high revs. I always find myself aching for more speed out of the turns, and at 2 of the high speed sections of this track, it was painful. I'm guessing a little tuning might be able to fix this, so I'm not too worried. It's still fun to drive, and I grew to be quite fond of it after nearly 600 kilometres of highway driving.
My verdict? Well it's not a sleeper, by my definition. But, it's also difficult to call it a beater, because it has a lot of potential in it. Unassuming as it may be, it's good fun. Now to get to work fixing the engine and the horrible, horrible gearing.
Overall score: 6/10
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