Cars that have surprised you!

[Jon TDI]

A lad around hear used to have a Corsa GSi. Just looked like a normal GSi.....until you got closer & saw the nitrous bottle where the rear seats should be!

Not only that, but he had a turbocharged Calibra engine in the thing!!

Saw him keeping up with a Fireblade once.

Went pop soon after a few months worth of laughing gas.

[GarryC]

Im gotta state the obvious here, but a Mk1 Octavia VRS.

I used to own a Calibra with a heavily tuned 2.0 16v C20XE running on throttle bodies before and one day came accross an Octavia while having some fun. I had noticed them and thought they looked okay but apart from that, knew nothing of them. Was bloody suprised i was only just pulling away from him.... This cant be right, my Gaylibra has 252bhp, something must be wrong.

Anyway, found out they had the 1.8t up front and could be played with simply, so when i was next after a car decided to get one of them. I needed a 4 door and big boot for practicallity, but still wanted something fun. That ticked all my boxes Esspecially when i ended up buying the ex F1 Brighton demo car :D:D:D:D (Cheers Simon).

Garry

[KiNeL]

Sn1gger if you will but many years ago I had an Allegro 1750 Sport, 2 in fact, and no, not the Equipe with the daft rainbow stripes down the sides, and it went like the proverbial feces off the gardening implement.

From a standing start to 60 or 70 it would easily out drag 3.5 Rover SD1's and 50 to 70 in 4th was quicker than a Lotus Eclat. The real fun was that apart from a couple of subtle details such as wheel trims and a 'Sport' badge it was indistinguishable from the cooking 1.3's and a lot of folk just couldn't stomach being bested by such a beast :P

They really weren't as bad a car as the press made out, together over about 5 years both mine did something like a total of 200k without significant problems. Rear suspension rubber mounts were a twice annually job but probably due more to my manner of driving than a weakness of design.

I remember having a set of tyres fitted one time and from the start I was unhappy with the feel of the car so the tyre depot regional manager came out with me for a drive. He was silent during the drive but when we got back pronounced

"you haven't got the wrong tyres, you've got the wrong car"

I took that as a compliment

[rwbaldwin]

My mates 480bhp, GT35, 4x4 based 'Saturday Sleeper' which looks to most like an ordinary GLX Octavia. He even leaves it unwashed to add to the fun.

His mission in life is 'to upset posh gits in posh cars'.

He specializes in Aston Martins out on a test drive from Newport Pagnell. The boys from Tickford Road try to ignore him, but they can't win. What can they say to the Astin Martin owner? Don't mess with the Skoda Octavia GLX - it'll leave you for dust!!

Great Fun.

[Browny_37]

When i had the Astra coupe, down on the way to PVS i came across a Lotus Carlton.

He nailed the throttle through the footwell and as a comparison i did too from about 65mph, all i saw was his back end stoop and squerm all the way down the motorway.

A friend has a Evo 6 running approx 550bhp, i came up behind him half expecting him to nail it anyway so i hung back.....big cloud of smoke as it spooled.

Next thing you know its gone, took me out in it and can reach some serious speed in matters of seconds!

[k04]

Has anyone driven an old Granada 2.8i ghia 4x4?

The most comfortable car iv ever been in,and quite bloody fast aswel for an auto

A 1.9 205 gti couldn't keep up,great car..**** brakes tho!

[Seedy Jay]

Pulled out of my road one morning behind a dead ordinary-looking Volvo 850 (or whatever) in a flat sort of greeny colour. It was pottering a bit through the village but i thought "what the hell, i'll hang on and pass it on the way out". Got up behind it ready to go as we got to the 60 limit then woof! It disappeared up the road going like a bat out of hell. Needless to say i had a go at keeping up but to no avail. Finally caught the sodding thing up at traffic lights, at which point i noticed a tiny badge on the back which read (yep, you guessed it) 'T5-R'. Green light on and i never saw it again! About 240 bhp, weren't they? That'll be a good 90 brake advantage over me, then (standard Octy 4x4).

[kelling]

nsu ro80,

[Mr Grumpy]

I've had a few cars that surprised the wife....

Like the time when I took our 7 month old Polo in for its first service, and when I went to pick it up the next day I came home in a brand new one.

She was mightily feckin' surprised then..

I had the bruises for ages, and no nookie for at least a week:rolleyes:

[Blade404]

BMW 535d... 70-140 pulled about 3-4 car lengths on me.

Might of been a different story if I could of been bothered to change down a gear first.

Edited 3 November, 2008 by Blade404

[Octavia Vrs!]

A freind had a pug 306 GTI6, thought the Octy would be quicker - nothing in it at all :(

So went to Jabba for 2 days, spent way too much and tried again - Left it for dust which was really nice to see the difference your money has actually made.

[David 8]

BMW 535d... 70-140 pulled about 3-4 car lengths on me.

A re-mapped fabia would be a worthy opponent......and they share the same secretive mysitque :rofl::rofl:

[David 8]

And on that note I'll move this to general car chat

[Blade404]

A re-mapped fabia would be a worthy opponent......and they share the same secretive mysitque :rofl::rofl:

:orb_lol:

Good one.

[amateurstuntman]

Raced s Suzuki Swift with my old Rover 214 once. Thing took off like a rocket. Should've seen my face when the guy told me it was a 1.3 8v carb engine!

I had one of the 16v versions, it would spin up it's tyres in second.

The key to it was that it had no weight in it at all.

I bought it for £100 from a mate of mine when he was skint at the end of the month.

Needless to say I got more for it when I sold it 2 years later.

I have been running or riding my bike into work so when I got the vRS we sold my wife's ghastly 1.3 fiesta, the '97 transition model that was total dog toffee.

She got surprised by the Octy, she is a good driver but smooth and economical, we had had the car a couple of weeks and she hadn't been above 3000rpm. We went to go onto the M20 and there was a small gap so she floored it.

She got such a shock she let out a little scream.

Brilliant.

[numptie-boy]

Have to say, my first ever drive in a Mk1 Golf GTi way back then. I had a 3 litre Capri at the time and the Golf was every bit as quick. Tha Fabia vRS now has kinda the same appeal......giant killer.

[Guest westallc]

guy near my work runs a corsa ****ter lowerd is the only thing you will notice and runs bucket seat apart fom that a bit of a ****ter

apart from the fact he is running a 380bhp z20let engine lol this thing is a complete joke the power is amazing....

[Brimma]

I had an A reg Maestro 1.3L - don't ask why - but the engine would run on for a few minutes sometimes even when the key was removed.

Surprised the hell out of me

[McG MkII]

before i got my fab vrs i was ina bit of a debate between that and a suzuki ignis sport, obviously now i look back and laugh but seeing on some forums people in them saying they came up against a fabia and beat it, i ended up with a fabia without even test driving an ignis, anyway on a dual carriage way one comes up behind me at the lights, i set off as normal and he is revving the crap out of it practically driving into my boot, so i decided to put my investment to the test, lets put it this way, i ended up feeling sorry for him and laying off the accelerator so he could catch up:rofl:

really thought from what id read that they would have been close, i was a good 250metres in front in a short space. surprised just how slow they are

[MoggyTech]

Morris 1000 with 2.0 litre Fiat Twin cam engine

Morris 1000 with Rover Sd1 V8

Mates Mclaren Merc which I drove on an airfield. Thought my face was being ripped off

Test drive before I bought my VRS, was very surprised at the bang for buck, still brings a grin to my chops.

[metz]

A few months back we were in a service station car park on the way home from a not so local vag meet when we saw a couple of young lads in what could only be described as a reject from madmax.

it was a primer grey corsa b with the worst mix and match jap kit fitted by a blind man with one arm...gets onto the motorway with this thing in tow, accelerated a little to put some space between us and the thing took off like it had been fired from a catapult. heard a turbo so im guessing calibra turbo engine. my mate stuck his polo GT (pd 130) in limp mode trying to keep up lol.

[Irvtheswerv]

Tickfords capri - a rare beast but like **** off a shovel. I remember about 1984?? being sat in the fast lane with my dad driving his BMW 735i at about 120mph, when a tickfords flashed us to get out of the way. My dad pulled into the middle lane and the capri was past and gone before you knew it.

Edited 18 May, 2009 by Irvtheswerv
still can't spell

[loskie]

Kia Ceed Diesel. picked one up as a hire car at stanstead airport, My heart sank, ran it for a week 1000miles. Seemed a great little car.

[Neo_VR]

Mazda 3 MPS