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Toyota Echo, review part two - Highway driving.

The GTI seat was squeaking again. This time, they've changed the bottom part of the seat. Hopefully, no more clickaty-click at every shift in momentum.

The fun part is, I got to drive the Echo again. I still stand by my original post -- it's no man car, but what a substitute for a go-kart on the highway.

One of the nicest feature is its benign nature. Since no one expects it to reach merging highway speeds, drivers didn't minded me cutting them off. What they don't realize is that at the push of a button, I can turn off the overdrive gear, and rev the stink out of the engine to give it that wee bit of juice. The whole car goes nuts at high RPMs. You can hear it in the cabin, you can feel it on the steering wheel. The windows, doors, roof, and even cup holder resonate desperate resolve; like flogging a horse into a berzerked frenzy, running its heart out and dropping dead at the finish line. "Captain, she can't take much more! The hyper-conduit-Trekkie-nerd coils are going to go!"

But it's actually acceptable to pass cars with. Remember Knight Rider and it's "Turbo Boost" button? Well, that's exactly how I felt each time I pressed it to downshift. Although it complains like a girl on boxing day not allowed to shop, it does obey and scoot. Fun, fun, fun.

So there I was, constantly weaving in and out of traffic. Overdrive (O/D) off, pass a car, signal immediately, squeeze in, give a friendly wave, O/D on. Look for next victim vehicle, and repeat the whole process, all 60 km of it. Heck, when there was room, the car actually hit an indicated 160km/h on the clocks. So what if it took forever? At those speeds and with that chasis, I felt like Mario Andretti.

Another good thing is you can rocket in utter stealth mode. How many cops will pick the lowly Echo as the fastest vehicle at any given time? Who would believe that it could obtain those speeds without being dropped out of an airplane? Certainly not I, if it wasn't for a close encounter of the third kind.

What they need is bigger tires, lower ride height, and a decent suspension. Give it another gear, make it stick shift, and throw in an extra 50 ponies at the wheel. That would be quite the sleeper. Okay, so another company has got that covered already, it's called the VW New Beetle Turbo S, and it flies.

....There are times when being a female would rock. posted by losir at 3:51 AM