Steering Column

A trip of many cars

Most people when they go overseas have a wow of a time looking at the sights and sounds of a new place. And I am no different. But I am different in the way I look at cars. I recently took a large trip overseas from the loneliest capital city on earth, Perth, Western Australia. Just to put that in perspective we are closer to Singapore than Sydney, and Sydney is 3,500km's away! And the motor industry here seems bent on getting us to drive bland cars that are all the same. Even NZ has a better selection!

We went to NZ for the Rally of New Zealand, and Graham Hughes from Sportsweb NZ once again kindly put us up, and gained us a renter car for the event. It may have not been flash, but the Toyota Corolla had really had a hard life. The small four door early 90's hatch had all of 269,000km's on the clock! The manual gearbox crunched into second every time (up and down - sounded like a close ratio gearbox, yeehaa!), and the clutch and suspension had had a life! But it got us round for the time we had it. We had three people in it on the second day of the event, the hardest day up north of Auckland, and it handled that very well, along with three up on the way back to Auckland from down south around Hamilton the day before. 120km/h trying to keep up with the traffic in the pouring rain - visibility nil. Not a hassle for the Corolla! If you want a second hand reliable car, this is it! Don't expect too much excitement though!

From NZ we ventured over the dateline and into the jungle that is the City of Angels. Yep, LA.

We left Auckland at 10.35pm on Wednesday, and arrived in LA at 3.15 that same afternoon, Wednesday! Bizarre! No wonder we were tired at the end of the longest day known to man! We hired a car from the airport, after realising that it was warmish - NZ hadn't seen over 20 degrees celsius - it was nearer 30 in LA! After fighting the crowds in the airport and finally getting our bags we loaded all our stuff onto a bus and went in search of a renter car. We ended up with a Plymouth Neon, which until recently was the Dodge Neon.

Now I have heard all sort of stories about these US national treasures, and most of it uncomplimentary, but it was the smallest car we could get (aka cheapest!). The first impressions were interesting, as I had to adjust to cars driving on the wrong side of the road - and that it was because I was on the other side of the car meant that every time I went to indicate I set the wipers off! After getting used to what part of road I needed to be on I realised the Neon was a good honest car, with a few things missing. One gear - still a three speed auto, but I believe that will be changing shortly, and central locking seems to be another omission. But the car itself was comfortable, seemed reasonably put together, although not brilliant in places (carpet fit seemed a bit iffy in spots for example) and brown trim is a thing of the past in Oz, although RED trim is still available in the US! And power, although we had the air on was sufficient most of the time, just restricted by the spacing of the three cogs.

We had need to drive around on the space saver spare for two days also! We were travelling down route 405 (if you want to get anywhere in LA, you need to take a freeway, they are EVERYWHERE!) and we were in the middle lane of five in our direction headed towards Long Beach on a Thursday night. I saw something on the road, and had to run over it - 100km/h surrounded by solid traffic is not the time to be swerving around. But we soon were, as it was obvious that he left rear tyre had no air in it anymore! This was probably due to the fact that the steel belt was in fact poking through the rubber and canvas, full width in one spot!

We then went onto Miami for a day, no car (and damn hot thank you very much!) and then onto New York City, which I highly recommend if you have some lazy money lying around. It is a fantastic place, and even though we were there for four days there was no way I was going to attempt driving there - you can walk places quicker in Manhattan. If you go to one place before you die you MUST go to NYC.

Then we were on the big silver bird again for the trans Atlantic trip to London. We were greeted by my brother in law, who picked us up in his pride and joy, a 'B' reg Astra GTE. The thing has a big exhaust (sounds like my old rally car!) and the car now wears some 15 inch wheels thanks to a 'mate in the game'. We had a ball harassing the locals in and around Southampton where they live, and the locals loved us back (sometimes - yeah right!). Disturbing the peace I think they call it. We called it 'fun'.

Anyway, the reason to be in England was for my sister's wedding, and the car we were transported in to the wedding was of great interest to me. A manual Mercedes 190E. 'Manual, so what?' say all the Europeans. We don't get any manual Mercedes, except the new small rollerball! The manual gearbox is strictly for the lower classes according to the Mercedes importers in Oz. This Merc had all the trimmings, lowered to road scraping height, LOUD exhaust and an equally loud stereo announced our arrival at the church. The boys were in town!

We then had a car to travel around in - actually my father did. A Mark 2 Golf, of all things. Now I had driven a Mark 1 Golf before, years before, and what had VW done with the Mark 2? As far as I could tell, they had taken all the fun out of it and made it into a boring runaround. Which, if that is what you want out of a car, then fine. But I like a little more, and I found the Golf bland. But it got us round for a while again.

We soon found out why all the cars in England are small, manual and fuel efficient - fuel cost... After the US and it's miniscule fuel prices, the cost of a tank of fuel in the UK was nothing short of obscene! That's fine, because I don't live there, but I hate autos, give me a manual any day. The Aussies are the same as the Americans, big engined, large fuel guzzlers in the main - such a waste.

The next car was the third renter we would have on the trip - a Renault Clio, 1.4 four door. What a top little car! Awful colour, a goldy off colour, but it didn't worry me - I just enjoyed the car. It was a five door hatch, and had all the trimmings the Neon didn't. Central locking, air, cruise control, power steering and a delightfully weighted gearshift made this car the one I would prefer out of all of the cars we had on our trip. It handled superbly, and never felt ill at ease with any of the road conditions we encountered, which included fine sunny to rain storms around Towcester/ Silverstone that we had to slow down to 20mph for. Apart from the fact that we were to fly out to see the Rally of Finland, I really didn't want to give it back. Oh well, all good things must come to an end. And yes Duncan, it was a hairdresser's motor.... (He should know, he married one - my sister!) Oh, and we saw the F1 cars test at Silverstone - awesome stuff for no cost.

So onto the plane again for Finland, Helsinki to be exact, and another set of wheels at the other end. My choice - a Nissan Micra, auto, or a Fiat Punto, manual. Wonder which one I took?! The Punto was full once we placed our luggage in it and headed for Jyvaskyla - 280km north of Helsinki. Jyvaskyla is the host town of the Rally of Finland, and that's why we were there. Thank goodness I had the opportunity a few weeks before in the US to drive the auto Neon, now I could concentrate on changing gears with my right hand instead of my left - harder at first than you may think! But you soon get used to it - I did.

The Punto was the 1.1-litre version, and the Finns are good at sticking to the speed limit - very hard on speeding in that country, and for good reason - the weather most of the year would not be conducive to much in the way of speed. You certainly find out why they have champions in all types of motorsort - car control is a necessity, not an option in Finland. And, you have to have your headlights on permanently - I figured this out really quickly when I observed that I was the only one on the road without them on!

Following the rally we had to fuel up after the first day - we had done remarkably well with the original tank of fuel. the Fiat sips the juice, we didn't have to fuel up again until later in the week when we headed back south towards Helsinki. I didn't do any figures, but it was impressive. It ran on the scent of an oily rag! Despite being the bare bones Punto, it wasn't all that uncomfortable, and the lack of power steer was only evident when you got lazy with your steering, which was often when I was tired! But all in all it was a car that did what it was intended for and no more, but certainly no less. It kept up with the Helsinki traffic, and the inland traffic on the way and way back to Jyvaskyla.

So there you have it - some of the world in cars. Rally cars, road cars, renter cars. It's all out there - you have just gotta go explore!

Story and photography by Neil Blackbourn - [email protected]

Designed & hosted by caint.com