Toyota versus Ford versus Alfa

[Marcus Widjaya <marcus_widjaya@domain.elided>]

Yesterday, I accompanied my colleague who is looking for a new
car to test drive the Toyota Corolla. It is a 1.6 litres four door 
automatic sedan.

Boy, am I glad I am not driving a Jap car now. The test drive goes
as follows.

- - the steering wheel is too big and too light (over-assisted)
- - on the road, there is hardly any feedback from the wheel
- - pitches and roll around corners
- - engines is coarse when pushed to higher rpms
- - untidy engine compartment; wires, tubes all over
- - it had tinny doors that sounds really horrible when slammed shut
- - dashboard is sooo conventional; buttons are flimsy
- - gas and brake pedals are almost vertical

Given my colleague's budget, I steered her to check out Ford Focus.
This is the 1.6 litres hatch automatic. I believe this is a better
car. It won awards in Europe and US. This Euro-like car certainly
walk away the winner compared to Toyota.

- - very good ergonomics; steering wheel feels meaty and sized correctly
- - seats are comfortable and view out is good; feels right
- - switches, buttons and materials feels more solid and durable
- - doors that close with a good thump
- - 100 bhp and feels strong; good lower rpms torque

I think the Japanese have a long way to go to match the Europeans.
All this talk of reliablity is useless if everything else is so boring.
I think the build quality of Jap cars are poor, with the exceptions in
high end cars like Lexus, Acura.

In comparison, what do we get from the Alfa 156?

- - beautiful lines of the design; just walking up to your car is a pleasure
- - doors the open and shut like vault; doesn't that reassure you of safety
- - step in and sit in an exquisite cabin; leather seats, smallish-chunky
steering wheel, sporty white-faced dials
- - start the engine; it barks to life and settles to a nice purr
- - formula 1 style, sequential shift; ferrari technology
- - excellent ergonomics; everything feels so right
- - warm the engine up before sending it to the redline; it revs willings;
sounds great
- - not the fastest car on the road but an absolute pleasure to drive
- - enough for you to love your car with passion

Marcus
99 156 Selespeed


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