Ahhhhha petrol again

The 197 having cruise is conceptually wrong, really. :-)

Why would you need to? 150bhp 1.8T is enough for a devestatingly effective cross country barge. And apparently some quite incredible 0-60 times...

Heh, I agree wholeheartedly! Although the new ones have slightly longer gearing in 5th anf 6th - one of the things that made me hunt for a year old one was that the older, shorter top gears box, makes it more fun to drive. Although it does allegedly sacrifice 2mpg or so...

should have bought an old E36 328 with a buggered engine and pay way over the odds for it then fork out again for the engine and have to dodge it through it's MOT every year, but you know whatever you like :)

Oh a very good point. I didn't think of it that way...

I suppose, but people don't usually buy these sorts of things for the sorts of annual mileages where another 2 mpg is going to make much of a difference, if you see what I mean.

Yeah so for a penny a mile difference it probably isn't worth getting too excited about.

(29 or 31 mpg, 110p per litre).

It's like having something that would give your Clio a bloody good run for its money down a twisty road but won't anally rape you on fuel costs.

Well that's just not true is it.

They also look pikey and cheap with a leather interior. BMW really don't have a clue when it comes to trimming cars, even a Discovery has a better interior.

Without seeing the two compared side by side or at the very least, me driving both back to back along similar roads, I can't vouch for it.

But I do think that it's a bit like claiming a Cinquecento Sporting is fast or a B5 Passat 1.8T is a devastatingly fast cross country missile.

;-)

You reckon?

I'd say something like a 120d M-Sport or Dynamic would be very bloody close down a twisty road - mostly because it would be able to get the power down much better than a FWD car with 22bhp more.

Granted, in a straight motorway drag, the Clio would have the edge, but not by a massive margin.

This is why the BMWs have always had huge weight penalties lumped on them in BTCC.

Anyway, we all know you should have bought a 130 M-Sport.

Well I'm pretty sure we were talking saloon cars, but even so...

Heh, cheapest 3 door on Autotrader is like £25k. Obviously no one with eyes could own the 5 door. You really should go an drive any of the modern crop of hot hatches. The 197 is generally acknowledged to have the best hot hatch chassis at the moment, quicker round the track than a Golf GTi for example - which is also a fine car. But I think even the Golf would surprise you in just how far they've come in the past for years, chassis wise... Not to be compared with the Pov specs ones the dealership sometimes give you - there is an awfully big difference.

It's a very close comparison.

I don't know the best place to look for full performance figures, but there's only 0.6 secs difference on 0-60 times, which is quite impressive considering the 120d is a particularly lardy hatch.

Fast for what they are. The Cinq. isn't slow as such and feels a lot quicker than it is. But it also begs you to cane it, and has handling (especially on decent springs and shocks) that'll see it keep with allegedly better stuff in the twisties.

As for the 1.8T, the accelleration times are actually damned impressive for a cooking car, so with the right attitude behind the wheel, they can be rowed along at quite impressive rates. Just ignore the roll and keep your right foot on the floor.

I think you meant to type "devastatingly fast cross-country missiles."

HTH.

Need is irrelevant, otherwise your clio would be a 1.6d...

Don't - the threat of it had me looking at C320CDis...

Volvo. I had 225 bhp ish and had no problems getting the power down.