The car was not mine so on a 600 mile round trip, for the first 200 miles I kept between 60 and 65 for the bulk of the journey on dual carriageway, less on that on byroads. It soon became apparent that the engine was torquey and flexible. The middle part of the trip consisted mostly of journey to and fro around a town bypass that had several sets of traffic lights and roundabouts in quick succession. I was surprised to have an old granny out-drag me at the traffic lights in a Punto while I was stirring the pudding with the gear lever. I could have kept up, by wringing the car’s neck sometimes, but I don’t like aggressive gear changes, especially as the car wasn’t mine. In my opinion the car was undergeared, so I tended to skip gears and use the engines flexibility instead – which worked.
I’m not impressed with the fuel consumption of a number of the modern cars – my 1978 1600 Ford with a Cosworth engine returned 45mpg when I was really pushing it (never overtaken) on a long run, although this would drop below 25 if I drove it in a town. It was a very different beast to the 100 hp Panda, much more fun to drive.
