Daihatsu Sirion CX 2WD/AWD '98
How does this little car rate on general popularity scale? Not to good I'm afraid. Three out of four people I asked to tell me what they think of the car couldn't figure out what company made it. Two people thought it was Daewoo (hm, it really does look like one) and one person was certain it was something from the east, but didn't want to go a step further and specify manufacturer. The last guy knew it was Daihatsu but only because he is a mechanic and allegedly worked on one years ago.
Oddly enough, all four tried to identify the car first, and then talk about what they think of it, which is what I asked them first. When we finally got there, only one guy - that "something from the east" dude - approved it by saying it looks cute. Two Daewoo guys didn't know what to say, and the last guy, the mechanic, was interrupted by a phone call just a moment before he was trying to say something.
I was waiting for nearly five minutes for him to finish his conversation only to hear him telling me that he needed to replace a broken windshield on a Sirion because his owner hit a flying bird or something.
And on my primary question he responded with shoulder shrug and replied, "if it drives fine, go for it".
And those are the results of my limited survey. I can't be disappointed since I didn't specify what exact aspect of the car people should express their opinions on, but in spite of it I still kinda got what I wanted. Most people are not aware of the model until you show them something like it does exist. And then any comment that follows will most likely target car's unusual styling.
Daihatsu mostly operates in Japan and that's what they get as a result of their absence from other markets.
But it seems Daihatsu doesn't mind that. It clearly knows what kind of business it wants to run and that perfectly corresponds with the lineup from GT2. The entire selection is mostly made of kei cars, with the exception of the Sirion that is the only slightly bigger car. But only in terms of body size - power range doesn't hesitate to drop down to a level that would make kei owners chuckle. The base model CX comes with a mere 59 HP engine, leading to one of the worst p/w ratio in the class and the game itself.
So when it comes to overall performance, I'm in a pretty bad position, much like my surveyed individuals were - I don't know what to say. Even when I drive it on the crappiest tires possible, even when I start taking improper cornering lines just so that I could simulate sharper, goosebumps-invoked cornering, there is still little to talk about. I do know I was constantly getting only one feedback - we need more power! Adding a turbocharger improves things dramatically, but it's still going to be outclassed by almost any tuned kei car.
There is one thing to remember; this body was made to withstand 59 hp, not 159. The same applies to its tires, skinny as they are, you can't expect them to grip the road as sports wide tires would. I'm saying that because some people could expect magic from the car once they tune it, just because it is AWD and weighs less than a ton.
Two different drivetrain models is thoughtful but it won't make much difference in this game. Since FWD cars have too much grip by default, you could likely profit by sticking with the FWD version entire time, since it's a bit lighter than the AWD.
If you really like this car and want more, switch to GT4. Not only you get two drivetrain models like here, but you can also fully upgrade each with either NA or turbo parts (GT2's NA parts barely raise any power). That gives you slightly more options to play with and build a Sirion that fully matches your needs. Since I love this car I ended up buying two models in GT4, one for gravel/ice roads and other for tarmac.
Speaking of gravel and ice, Sirion was widely raced in domestic rallies, and if you want, you can easily make your own replica from a CX or even X4. Lots of privateers mostly used X4s and facelift 1.3 models for sub 1000 and 1500 cc classes, but accordingly, Daihatsu's own sports team built a limited number of 300 hp versions. There is only one video on Youtube showing a possible proof of its existence, but that still needs to be confirmed since there is exactly none written info on it anywhere else. The fictional Sirion rally car from GT2 is presumably based on it, but without any strong evidence confirming such model really existed, I can't say how fictional the GT2 version really is. Besides, what kind of 1.3 liter engine could produce that kind of power? Is that even possible?
What we can tell is that the rally car is wider than the standard Sirion by 140 mm and that instills confidence it could be more competent on corners than any tuned CX or X4. I heard its awesome so I gave it a quick test drive. While it is indeed fast, it shows strong preference for grip driving which I didn't like that much. That's not my idea of an AWD rally car and I'm afraid I would spend too much of my time trying to make it skid around like some Ken Block's wannabe Gymkhana dude.
Some day I would like to own a Sirion because its wicked styling guarantees certain exclusivity you won't find on any other city car.
Mazda 323 4-door Interplay '89
Interplay, everyone. Interplay...
Makes you think what could it possibly mean. My presumption was that it had something to do with the engine. Perhaps Mazda developed some sort of advanced technology that was supposed to make the engine run smoother, use less fuel or deliver better performance. Or maybe it was a special type of engine built to cut production costs and offer easier maintenance. It wouldn't be the first one.
But it is in fact that my presumption was garbage.
This Interplay thing is nothing more than a trim level label. A level that brings you amenities such as I don't know, who cares and whatever. Couldn't live without them.
All poking aside, it was impossible for me to find anything about it on the internet. Polyphony identified it as a luxurious package, and further investigation brought me to Indonesian videos from which I could only presume (again) that Interplay contains electronic package for windows, mirrors and air ventilation. Is really that it? Please tell me more if you know.
The car itself is exceptionally cheap. The color I liked was on sale for three and a half grand. If I wanted a black one I could get it for even less than that. I didn't want to give this too much thought, because why wouldn't I spend less if I can, but then I saw a turbocharged GT-X selling for just a bit over four grand. Now that's insane, does this dealership really make any money on 323s?! According to Polyphony, it seems not!
Only once in my life I heard of a dealership selling its brand new SUV model for zero commission, and that's because the buyer was a notable charity association and its representative a guy with advanced social skills. One phone call was all he needed to negotiate buying a car from them on a "discount" he wouldn't get anywhere else.
He made them believe a sale like that would increase reputation of their company by spreading the voice of a good deed around. I have no problem with this but it makes me wondering; if you already want to buy a brand new car, and you're willing to spend a lot of money on it, why fight over few thousand dollars of profit the shop was supposed to get? If you're concerned about saving, why not ask for a donation then? Most dealerships that import vehicles from one particular manufacturer usually have some sort of a deal with it to gift a car every once in a while, as a part of promotion or something else. That to my knowledge usually does not affect business of either parties since there are ways that can be organized. But by doing something like he did, his association won't make any drastic save on its budget to make that move reasonable but he WILL take the bread of the seller's mouth. But that's just my opinion, not that I know much about how business works.
So according to our game, either these car depreciate faster than a flying bullet or they've been butchered to death by previous owners. Whatever the reason is, a price that low is a good news for people starting out with the game, because they can use the remaining money on some upgrades, which this car NEEDS.
The chassis is quite stiff, though you could hardly tell that from a replay or the moves the car makes when cornering. There is enough mechanical data coming from both axles so you can always tell how far you're allowed to push on each tire compound.
Even so, performance isn't anything to write home about, mostly because the car lacks speed for circuits. Accelerating anywhere takes time and when you eventually get there you never want to brake because of the time it will take you to pick up speed again. Plus, when you reach the end of its limits, the car offers nothing but classic understeer. The vibe I sense from the car reminds me a lot on cars that are built to serve parents and their groceries. Family cars can be exciting to drive at low power, but it takes effort in other areas to provide amusement, and this Interplay model obviously isn't doing that.
If I wanted to be mean, I could say I got what I paid for, but in this case that does not apply because the Interplay isn't a bad car, it's just too ORDINARY. I would suggest aiming straight for the GT-X since that one is a bit more GT-themed and should offer some level of excitement right from the start. Let's leave the Interplay to chaps with obsessive attention to factory trim details. Who knows, maybe at the press of a single controller button we can pull all four pixelated windows down and spot American paper bag with a celery sticking out of it. That would be dope.
FIAT Seicento Sporting (VS others!)
Four years ago I reviewed a Cinquecento and now it is time to check its successor, the Seicento. Forum guys and fans of Italian cars repeadetly argue that both are very, very similar apart from how they were sketched, so I don't expect to see any crucial differences, only minor ones. I never did a thorough reasearch so I don't really know WHAT to expect, but if we hold on to theory the two aren't identical, I'll be happy with every single distinction I can witness. Clearly we're not going to find out anything by looking at the dealership stats since both cars share the same exact data. We need to take them out on the road and see how they perform.
I got a day off and booked myself a track day at Motorsport Land. This course is perfect for what I had in mind since it gives you no room to relax. You're constantly doing something, turning your wheel, braking, looking at checkpoint times, aiming for apexes, anything. I want to use every single minute of my free time pushing the cars to their maximum and in order to do that, I need a track that's going to MAKE ME do that. Besides, the cars we are testing today have almost no power by GT standards, so they are just going to wear you out if you take them out to circuits made of endless straights and 100 kph sweepers.
I bought two Sporting models, the new and old one. The 600 (Seicento) is the star of the show, but as I said previously, I want to see how the 500 (Cinquecento) compares so it's joining the journey. I also decided to bring along two volunteers from the same class just to see if the Sportings pose any threat to anything other but themselves. Off the top of my head I knew I wanted a Mini here since both Sportings and Mini have a story to tell, they have been used heavily on rally events and were compared by automotive journalists all the time. Another one I wanted to include was a 2WD Daihatsu Opti Club Sport. I felt it was mandatory to bring at least one kei car to our little flock and in terms of what this one had to offer it looked like a great pick. You could say it's perfectly optimized for today's assignment.
So, two Sporting models, two sparing partners, eight pairs of real-life tires... damn, that will cost a little fortune. Thank goodness we don't have to take any bank loan!
The game charges us 13 grand per Sporting, that's no little money considering you can get most kei cars from 10 to 12. Okay, the Mini is more expensive, but you're paying for the icon there, not the car itself. The 600 shouldn't cost that much and should definitely worth more than the 500. Why is the 500 a "new car" anyway? By the same token, an R33 GT-R should be also. Polyphony uses different standards for certain cars and that's why applying logic is sometimes waste of time. I suppose they didn't want to include used car sheet for a dealership if they couldn't fill it with sufficient amount of models, but why not make a single sheet that includes everything from a certain period of time then, like in GT4?
Surprisingly, these Sportings tend to be equally expensive in real world, even as second-hand cars. Unlike Punto from the same generation, Sportings don't know for depreciation. Nowadays in Croatia it's hard to find an used one for less than 1300 euros. Even basic S and SX models tend to cost around 2000 euros, which is totally absurd! Considering you can buy a decent Punto for that amount or less, which is much more practical, stable and better overall than a Sporting, why would you do that? The only reason I can think of is that Punto may feel less sporty and exclusive than a Sporting, but I really doubt that's what keeps Sportings so pricey, especially the base models.
However, some people disagree with my pricing complaint. They think it's normal to pay that much for a Sporting. One acquaintance of mine told me he wouldn't mind spending EVEN MORE on it as he was countless times checking for an older two-stroke 50 cc Vespa, none of which he found in decent shape could be bought for less than 1500 euros. And he didn't want to ride a Vespa really, only posses for a future value. So, from his angle, a Sporting that costs 2000 euros is a good deal as long as it's cheaper than a *ucking scooter?! That logic would make sense if he was looking for the best means of transportation possible but he clearly wanted one particular model withing the means, class and make he had already chosen! So why compare a car to a scooter then? You compare a car to a car or you don't compare at all. This scooter supplement sounds like nothing other than a desperate excuse not to admit Cinquecentos and Seicentos are simply overvalued for what they are.
Anyhow, let's see how the 600 stacks up against the 500.
The first thing that immediately drew my attention was its gearing. Fiat changed the ratio of the 1st gear so that it no longer hits the rev limiter at 20+ kph. How nice of them. I remember this being one of the most bizarre things on the 500. The gear would get in my way so much I had no choice but to use the 2nd one for fly offs. Once you're out there racing, you'll likely never need 1st gear again, but that one time, when you really need it, I want to know it's capable of doing what's supposed to do - allow me to quickly take off with as little wheelspin as possible. Am I asking too much? Obviously not, and the 600 is a proof it can be done.
We can often see shorter 1st gears on vehicles that are designed to off-road or tow stuff, but that's okay since these vehicles are meant to serve as workhorses. The 500, on the other hand, is a city car so it has ZERO reason to have it. It's not like it has 10 HP so it needs bicycle setup to pick up speed.
I'm not even sure if this gearing thing on the 500 was Polyphony's baloney or not, and I was afraid to check as I wanted to believe at least once in my life that I have witnessed Polyphony capturing a major boo-boo on one of manufacturer's products.
Both cars can clear the entire track in one gear, 2nd in case of the 600 and 3rd in case of the 500. The reason is the ratio of the 500's 1st gear. Other gears don't seem to be any different but even if they were, on this track it wouldn't matter anyway because of its technical layout.
In general the 600 seems to be slightly faster than the 500 for a reason I wasn't able to identify. I'm sure that gears have nothing to do with it. I was able to catch up with the 500 even if 600's engine was running at rpm that was supposed to put me in a disadvantageous position. A clear run at Super Speedway gave the 600 advantage of 0,700 seconds. I would probably say this has something to do with engine's electronics or maybe better aerodynamics because I couldn't find any other reason in what I was presented with.
Right now the situation doesn't look very bright for the 500, but I found one factor that will make you think less highly of the 600.
Such as ground clearance for instance. The 500 seats closer to the ground by 1 cm. Those 10 millimeters normally wouldn't mean anything but I dare to say that in this case they meant EVERYTHING. Extra clearance makes the 600 less responsive and forces you into taking wider cornering arc. Higher center of gravity equals more body roll, less response and consequently less maneuverability.
But the 600 has no attention to back off! It has another trump card up its sleeves, another gimmick granted by modern technology. ABS. Its brakes don't lock up if you brake too hard. That often happens with the 500. I would often receive big amounts of understeer just before a corner entry so I had to put all the effort to brake on straights which obviously isn't easy on a track like this, you gotta have some braking during a turn-in. I thought I could avoid this by modulating brakes with analog controls, but it did not help. And even though general braking power seems to be worse on the 500 by half of the car's lenght (judged from a 130 kph rolling start), this isn't going to make impact on your performance as much as that understeer. This problem doesn't exist on the 600, and understeer that hits you is milder.
On the subject of hitting, I'm slightly going to digress from the topic again. At some point there was a lot of concern involved around safety of people driving inside a 500 and 600. And for a good reason. The 500's chassis could be deformed on slighter inpact leaving its passengers exposed to serious injuries or even death. Even if the car had some safety equipment (it had none), those could do little to nothing to minimize danger.
But that's okay, I'm not going to judge safety of a car built during the 80s. Back then this wasn't primary concern in super mini class of cars, so the 500 wasn't actually that much unsafer than its rivals.
But in 1998, some standards did exist. So there was no excuse not to improve rigidity of the chassis even if the car was pocket-sized. Sadly, Fiat did absolutely nothing to ensure the 600 would make a step forward towards safety of its occupants. It reused the exact same chassis, much like it did with the engine and drivetrain, adding only minor safety aids, such as airbags or ABS. To my knowledge, the bodywork remained 100% intact and Fiat kept spamming it until 2010 when last 600 models rolled of the line.
That's... pretty daring actually, and a bit criminal if I may say. I suppose Fiat wanted to cut down production costs. That would explain why the 600 was very cheap compared to a Renault Twingo or even Daewoo Matiz, the latter which wasn't easy to achieve.
WHICH IS ANOTHER *UCKIN REASON WHY USED EXAMPLES SHOULDN'T BE THAT EXPENSIVE!
So that's about only time when it makes sense comparing a 600 to a motorcycle. Listen up, fathers. If you have a kid who is crazy about motorcycles, and you're worried about his safety, you can prevent him from ever riding it by offering a compromise in a shape of a 600 Sporting with new Michelin tires and a free tank of petrol. Four tires will always provide more safety than two, even if the car resting on them doesn't have the necessary safety factor you would want for your kid.
I know it doesn't sound like a good alternative, but it is not supposed to be good, only LESS BAD. If you're concerned about safety you should normally avoid car-cans and loud rockets between your legs and focus on modern vehicles with safety angels and tough chassis. You can always experiment with death sentence vehicles in video games.
Sorry about that. Back to our game.
Fiat's FIRE engines are known for being sturdy and simple to maintain, but that's not this one's only advantage. Its power band works like a charm in urban conditions, and we can feel some of this here since majority of corners kinda want you to drop the revs down. You could downshift, but why should you if you have enough torque at disposal to pull you out of a corner?
Torque spikes at 3250 rpm and keeps supplying enough force until about 5000. A good bonus is that at this point you also have plenty of power at disposal, not the maximum output of 55, but around 50, which is still great. Now you know why it is possible to clear the entire track using only one gear, there is simply no need to downshift since the engine remains responsive where it needs to be. This of course applies to both the 500 and 600 since they share the same engine.
Then it was time to face Mini. I decided to use the poverty version 1.3 since I believed the Cooper would be unfairly better despite using the same engine, but to be honest, I'm not sure I understand how these two models differentiate. The internet wasn't very helpful and nor were GT2 Minis info pages. Do these two cars really share the same engine? I noticed they had different power bands so that makes me wondering. I would wish to know more, please if someone knows, share the knowledge.
Anyway, I thought there would be problems because of the difference in power and weight, but I managed to keep the Mini away from the 600 for few laps.
There is a significant amount of understeer crippling the Mini, combined with a tendency to skid on all four wheels. Minimum skidding is acceptable and even recommended as long as it does nothing else but help change direction of your car so that you can switch to accelerating as quickly as possible. But when it starts moving the car away from imagined line and prevent picking up speed, that's a sign lap times will suffer and that we need a better suspension setup. In addition, the engine DOES provide enough torque but not much power, around 50 at the point of the most frequent revving. So even though it has more power overall than the 600, here it can't be used until you rev it high enough, and that happens only at the end of that short straightway. The Mini would probably beat the 600 elsewhere without much trouble, but on this track little details on the engines and their powerbands made that victory slightly harder to achieve.
The last opponent was Opti. It's a ground clearance champion, 20 millimeters higher than the 500 or 10 compared to the 600. Once again, the difference is felt. Despite being the lightest car in the group, it is actually the least responsive to steer and prone to taking wide cornering line. If you try to be aggressive, it responds with four-wheel drift that reduces its momentum and cuts your corner-exit speed. It also severely understeers, just like the 500, though I swear it is even worse at times. This is a car that is difficult to prepare for a corner properly, you need to pay lot of attention to braking and line you take. Once it starts understeering it is very difficult to recover from it.
On top of all the problems sits the engine. Less than 40 hp at 4500 rpm and not even 50 at 6000 makes the Opti very slow despite having decent force of torque distributed across the mid-rev rpm zone (though the 600's engine still produces 2.6 units of torque more overall).
I can imagine the Opti outperforming the 600 but without tweaked suspension and track segments long enough for the engine to rev high, that image is hard to realize.
In conclusion, I think both 500 and 600 are far from identical, but they are similar enough to make you think they're the same thing. The 600 takes advantage of minor modern assistance, such as power steering or ABS, but retains the same chassis and engine from its predecessor. It also comes with more useful 1st gear. The 500 requires careful braking but it gets to be more thrilling to drive due its lowered suspension.
Those are the results I got testing the two in GT2, let me know what you think, does any of this apply to real models, especially if you used to own one of these two cars (or both!).
And I apologize for not posting screenshots once again, this last review ended being a bit too long and I didn't find enough time to capture some shots and brake the repetition of the bland text. Regardless, I hope you'll enjoy the read, have a happy new 2022 and stay safe!
I remember really enjoying my drive in the C43. Never did try the heavier E55, but maybe some day I will. Good to hear it's also quite nimble. 
And sorry, no idea about the RUFs.
