>Oh my, it has come to this. I am reduced to road testing the wife’s car. Well, I suppose that must mean I need to get into it and actually drive it. Fabulous. Can I not walk? Oh, ok I’ll have a go. Firstly, to waste some time and space I shall include a photo of the front. No, that really hasn’t made me want to drive the car any more than I did before.

Whilst the picture of the car is loading, I shall talk about the styling. Well, it has some wheels, four of them on the exterior in fact. One notable fact about it is the designers used the same shape on the left hand side as they did the right hand side. What is clever, however, is there are apertures with opening panels that allow you to gain access into the car. Even better, these panels have cut outs with glass in them so you can see out of them. That really shows the forward thinking and intelligence of the Vauxhall design team that were working on the Corsa.

However, once inside the car is where the problem starts. Mainly when sat in the drivers seat as this implies that one must drive the car. There are many different shades of grey which liven up the dark grey dashboard. You do get some standard equipment within the car which include seats, steering wheel, engine, suspension, glovebox and a dashboard. There are some windows that are operated by electricity. There is also a novel locking system whereby you turn the key and sometimes some of the other doors unlock as well. This is an ideal security device and again marks out Vauxhall engineers as geniuses. It means when the other three doors are unlocked, the fourth door won’t fall off because it’s locked no matter how hard you crash into a pillar with it.

Now it’s time to drive this car. It is powered by a 1.2 16 valve engine that develops a whopping 74 bhp. However, it fails to deliver about 67 of those 74 horses due to the set up of the gearbox. You see, it is equipped with a manual gearbox with an electronic clutch system, thus the car being classed as an automatic. Vauxhall call this system “Easytronic” which is a clever mix of words. I would explain to those that don’t know how clever it is but I really can’t be bothered. With this automatic gearbox you can drive it in auto mode or sequential manual gearbox. Automatic doesn’t really work sequentially as it can select 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th but not necessarily in that order. In automatic mode the gear changes take 6-10 working days. Things do work a little better in manual mode. For example, if you are thinking of taking a trip from Penzance to Gloucester you’ll be in 2nd gear by the time you get to Exeter. This again shows the foresight of the Vauxhall engineering team as the gear change time has reduced from 6-10 working days to precisely a few hours.

This is the back of the car, in case you hadn’t realised

The ride is most excellent if you cannot feel anything. However, if you do have senses of pain and feeling, be prepared to pick your spine up at the end of every journey as it will be in kit form in the foot well. Cornering ability is pretty good actually. If you go on a road with no corners. Performance wise? I’m not sure as I’d lost interest and the will to live by the time the gearbox changed up to fifth. As for acceleration, it is quicker accelerating at 27 mph as a Ford Fiesta is at 25mph.

Practicality wise, there are ups and downs. It is not advisable to put anything in the door pockets as they are made from the same plastics and compact disc cases and disintegrate with a passing breath. The boot is vast compared with an insect and cleverly, credit once again to Vauxhall’s boffins, right up at the front beyond the cabin there is storage for an engine and gearbox, should you wish to carry them around with you.

So, a verdict then? Well, it’s a car.

>Well, I can’t refer to it as anything else. It would be politically incorrect of me to refer to it as an MG Midget, despite that’s what it is.

This is going to be a short blog entry for once. I’ve discovered I need an old car in my life, but what’s on the horizon, this isn’t going to be practical at all. After spending a small amount of time in an MG Midget, photographed here, I’ve decided I want one.

Why was I in an MG Midget? To drive it to the Cornish Festival of Speed, held at Tregrehan House in St Austell, which was a fantastic day out and well worth any person’s money to be honest. Lots of fantastic cars on display, of which this little MG was one of the exhibits, and lots of entertainment watching different types of cars compete for the fastest time on the sprint hill climb. Cars from Minis and Escorts through to single seat racers and purpose-built rally and racing machinery could be found competing.

So, why do I want an old car I can’t even hear you ask. It’s just back to basics pure driving, there’s nothing between you, the car and the road. No electronic driving aids. No computermabobs to break. And on a day like it was, with the roof down, blue skies, sun shining and the shades on, it was fantastic. Put it this way, I was glad I ended up driving the Midget rather than the Alfa Mito or Giulietta the other guys took. What’s happening? I’m hankering after an MG sports car and I don’t even own a flat cap, or even have a beard or drink beer with bits of twig in it. I still want one. Despite the fact that something broke on the journey back. The bearings in the dynamo packed up. This is a British sports car after all, and something falling off or breaking on every journey really is normal.

And yes, I have realised this is yet another rant-free blog entry. I’ve just had nothing worth ranting about as late. I promise normal service shall resume shortly.

>Most car magazines tend to do long term tests on selected cars to show how reliable (or unreliable) they may be. But in these tests, cars tend to be kept for 6-12 months and then that’s it. So I’ve decided that the Stilo qualifies for one of these long term test jobbies seems I’ve owned it for just over five years and 50,000 miles.  If you’re a normal person, stop reading now. No, seriously. However, if you are a complete nerd like me, pray continue.

First, an introduction to the Stilo. A car launched to replace the old Brava and Bravo (and ironically replaced by the …er…. Bravo) in 3 and 5 door form. Whereas the 5 door version is as appealing as sawing your arm off, the 3 door is a fantastic looking car and that would be my car in the picture. A little time later, the versatile and smart Multiwagon estate version was launched.

So, just over five years ago I decided to purchase a 3 door 1.4 Active. An ex-demonstrator that had covered 180 miles over 12 months. A saving of £4,500 on list price was certainly order of the day. It did raise a few eyebrows, as the Stilo had a horrendous reliability record when first launched. It really did seem like as good an idea as Ben Collins wanting to reveal himself as the Stig, the big, greedy unknown arse bucket. However, my car is a Phase 2 Stilo which means it had a whole host of improvements to make it “better”.

So, first of all, how does it drive? It’s average, to be honest. The electronic steering has as much life as a corpse and as much communication as a monk who has taken a vow of silence. The handling is a bit Golf-like. However on the plus side, the ride is outstanding and the interior comfort is as good if not better than anything in its class. The engine, if underpowered in a car this size at just under 100bhp, is a gem and wants to be revved and is coupled to a six speed manual gearbox which is positive and slick in action. Which is just as well as it does need to be used a fair amount. Interior space is good, with ample room for five Mafia types and enough storage spaces and cubby holes that would shame Ikea.

As it’s poverty spec Active it is bottom of the range so it comes with some seats and an engine. It does have a few extra bits though such as alloy wheels, remote locking, electric windows, electric heated mirrors, trip computer, decent sound system with MP3, six airbags. Did I mention seats? And an engine?

So, we’ve established it’s a fairly run of the mill drive, but an excellent looker and it has some seats, but what has it been like for reliability? To be fair, pretty bloody good after 50,000 miles. As far as spending money on it goes, I’ve had it MOT’d (it’s been through three and passed every one, and I didn’t even have to bribe or sack the tester!), serviced it, replaced wear and tear items such as cam belt, brake pads and the exhaust, as well as tyres, petrol and insurance. It’s never broken down, never left me stranded, never failed to start. I can’t exactly mock the legendary Italian build quality either as nothing has ever fallen off and it’s pretty rattle free also.

In the six years, the blips which can be put down to the car include:
– One or two spurious warning lights coming on early on in its life. But it is a Stilo.
– Replacement wiper linkage at 2 years old due to noise (replaced under warranty)
– Speedo stopped working
– 1 of 4 coil packs failed after 5 years and 46,000 miles. The other three are originals. If you drove a petrol engined Renault, you’d be replacing these coil packs every 6-12 months.

However, it has had more replaced than it need to due to an accident in which Her Indoors hit a patch of diesel and span it 360 in the middle of the road, smashing into curbs before eventually mounting a boulder (oooh errr). Three damaged alloy wheels (two of which snapped clean) meant it had to have a new set of wheels and tyres, bent rear axle, stub axles, front wishbones, wheel bearings all round and a general sprucing up of the bodywork. All of which meant the insurance company had a bill just short of £3,000. That’s hardly the fault of the car, though.

The Stilo does have an iffy image problem, due to Fiat wanting to make a Golf clone, the early reliability issues, the styling of the five door model and the slightly average dynamics. But is the image it has deserved? Judging by our experiences with the Stilo, not a bit of it. Yes, the dynamics could be sharpened up a bit, but it’s still better to drive than the equivalent Golf, Renault or Vauxhall for example. It’s also proved to be a generally fault-free car, and considering the treatment the car has had from myself and She Who Must Be Obeyed, I personally think it’s stood up and made a case for itself pretty well.

>The Alfa Romeo Mito. It’s pronounced Me Toe, don’t you know. The name is conjured up between two place names – the Mi for Milan (used to be Alfa’s HQ) and To for Torino (where it’s built). Since its launch around 18 months ago, I’ve driven just about all different variations of Mito, some are good, two are excellent and two are aboslutely terrible and would never advise ever driving.

So, what is the Mito? Well, obviously, it’s a car. And it’s built by Alfa Romeo, only it’s not. The Mito is actually built by Fiat in Turin alongside the Grande Punto / Punto Evo as essentially it is the same car. Peel away the fancy bodywork and it’s all Fiat. The chassis, engines, the lot.

So, what’s available? In the current range there’s 4 choices of petrol engine, all 1.4 – two of which are normally aspirated with 77bhp or 95bhp. The other two are the Fiat Group’s new MultiAir efforts which develop 135bhp or 170bhp in Cloverleaf guise. There’s also 2 diesels – a 1.3 and a 1.6.

I’m not really going to go into trim levels because I’m not interested in that, I want to know what it drives like. Is it any good? Where am I? And why am I asking questions all the time? Do you know?

It’s a fine little car to drive really if you steer clear of the 78 Junior which is about as Alfa-like as a Ford Orion. I’d also steer clear of the 1.6 diesel because as a package, it fails spectacularly. The economy can be match by its petrol counterparts, it’s a lot dearer, it isn’t as good as the 1.3 diesel, it’s noisy, unrefined and the gearchange is apalling.

All models save for Junior have Alfa’s DNA (geddit?) system which offers three different styles of driving. D is for Dynamic, N for Normal and A for All Weather. When Dynamic is activated, assistance to the steering is reduced, torque is increased and the throttle response is much crisper and sweeter (In the Cloverleaf, it D mode also changes the suspension settings as it has an adaptive suspension setup). That said it needs to be because driving in Normal afterwards is dreadful. All Weather is pointless in the UK as the one week we have snow we’re all locked away at home in a complete panic because the world is about to end. So, just keep it in D to get the best out of the little Alfa.

Throughout the Mito range including the hot Cloverleaf version the main problem is the ride and the steering. The steering has quite an artificial feel about it and feels over-assisted in Normal mode. It’s better in Dynamic mode but there’s a lot of fidget and a lot of over-correction is needed. The ride is something you need to get used to. If you want to end up with your spine in kit form, the Mito is the car for you. If you choose ride comfort over anything else, choose the Punto.

Once you get used to the steering, the chassis is very good. It corners flat, turns in well and is coupled to a selection of slick, nicely shifting 5 and 6 speed manual gearboxes (except for the 1600 diesel). All the petrol engines are eager little things. Of all I’ve driven, I take a preference to the lowly normally aspirated 1.4 as it’s such an eager, rev-happy unit and, although not very quick or powerful (95bhp), it’s entertaining to drive it to within an inch of its life. The rest are turbo charged and when Mito was first introduced, 120 and 155 bhp turbo petrols were available, both absolute peaches. However, these have both been replaced by the new range of Multiair engines, rated at 135bhp and 170bhp in the range topping Cloverleaf. Which is my other favourite engine in the range. I really can’t be bothered to go into all the technical speak of the Multiair engine but in the 170 at least, it’s smooth, responsive and almost free of turbo lag.

The interior is well laid out and seems solidly built and a good driving position is easily found. Bluetooth connectivity comes on top end models and an MP3 compatible stereo comes on all models. Air con is standard throughout the range as are electric windows and mirrors.

However, if I am nitpicking with the car, I’m still not quite used to the frontal styling. It also annoys me that the speedometer view is partially blocked by the steering wheel. Rear seat space is so much at a premium that really all you can fit there are guitar plectrums. And the boot has a high sill. However the way it drives, the engines and the way the side and back end look, it’s a hit.

It will just be interesting to see what reliability and durability will be like.

So, what’s on the old score board Miss Ford?

Styling: 15/20
Performance: 18/20
Handling 15/20
Ride: 9/20
Comfort: 13/20

So, the Alfa scores 70 out of 100. Better than the subject of my first written road test, the VW Beetle. True, the Mito has some shortcomings and flaws – it’s steering is numb, the ride is hard, the 1.6 Diesel is rubbish, the front end styling is, in politeness, polarised, and the DNA is a gimmick. But it has other talents which are hard to ignore. It’s also cheaper than a Fiesta.