This morning I was setting out to go drive the P4 120 miles south to swap for the subject of this thread. The P4 has many good points, but currently the heater delivers approximately 15% it's rated output and there's no way to direct air to the windscreen. The wipers are also absolutely awful.
Of course it dawned a cold, humid, rainy morning. Perfect!
The first hour of the journey was basically spent frantically wiping the windscreen every 30 seconds. Having the passenger window wide open and the driver's quarterlight open would *just about* keep the screen clear if I was on the open road, but every time I stopped it would almost instantly fog up again. It made the trip between MK and Oxford really quite stressful as the traffic was stop-start in several areas. Stress levels weren't helped by my phone's windscreen mount exploding about ten minutes into the trip. Thankfully thereafter it cleared up and I was able to engage juggernaut mode on the dual carriageway/motorway down towards Portsmouth. The remainder was a fairly pleasant trip aside from being freezing cold. I regretted my decision not to take gloves as my fingers were well and truly numb by the time I got there.
I then spent far longer than I had planned sitting here waiting to head for home.
Simply because I had to wait for Hagerty to answer their phones...which usually is a matter of about 30 seconds. Of course today it took 20 minutes. Nevertheless, I eventually got through and they then got the policy transferred from the P4 to the Trabant in less than five minutes and we were off.
Two and a half hours later we arrived home.
Only actually ten minutes later than Google had estimated which I reckon wasn't bad at all.
I can't quite say she didn't miss a beat, as she did have one singular cough after I'd been sitting in a queue for about 15 mins at one point, I'm guessing one of the plugs had just loaded up a bit as it never happened again. Aside from that though she ran flawlessly and was quite content to buzz along at 56mph with plenty more to go. I was deliberately taking things easy as I know this car hasn't been in all that regular use for a while, so a 120 mile motorway run was a bit of a trial by fire. So I just slotted myself in with the HGVs and bumbled along.
We used almost exactly half a tank of fuel, which by my math equates to approximately 45mpg, not bad at all. I'll get exact figures when I fill up.
This is quite possibly the strangest little car I've ever driven.
Okay...*nearly* the strangest car I've driven...that title probably falls to this little menace.
I guess my brain was kind of prepared for it to be in some ways reminiscent of the Lada, but it really isn't (other than being exceptionally noisy at speed). In the Lada everything is heavy (except the excellent gear shift) and fairly vague. This is really the polar opposite. All of the controls are light (the clutch in particular you could press with a finger), and the car feels light and really nimble.
Actually gets up and goes a lot better than I had expected given the blazing 26bhp on tap.
The fact they have put sound deadening on the underside of the bonnet to attempt to tame the ridiculous amount of noise generated by that engine does somewhat amuse me.
The vast majority of my experience with two stroke engines has been with a couple of Detroit diesels...which share one thing with this, the fact that biblical amounts of noise are generated...I don't think a bit of padding really is going to make much difference!
The car was absolutely happy to buzz along at 55mph and definitely had more to give it needed - but I was definitely taking it easy on the trip home. Not least because I was having to lean halfway into the passenger seat to see where I was going because the driver's side wiper is loose on the spindle and only wipes about 1/3 of it's intended stroke (most of the time).
Ride is a little bouncy but not at all jarring. Kind of unavoidable in such a light car, especially with such a comically short wheelbase. Surprisingly comfortable I found, even if the driving position is exceedingly odd.
The seat is very low to the floor, and because of where the wheel tub is the pedals are massively offset to the right, the accelerator being well over the centre line of the car I think.
Nice little period accessory on the dash, intended to track fuel usage.
This currently seems to be jammed up but I'll see if I can get it working. Would be nice to be able to set it to when I next needed to plan to refuel.
A feature this car shares with the Lada is a heater which could double as a blast furnace.
It is *fiercely* effective. First air cooled car I've driven which actually has a halfway decent heater, even if it did take me a few minutes to figure out the controls.
Which is a good thing as otherwise keeping the windscreen demisted might have been a bit of a chore given I've apparently got the optional indoor swimming pool specified.
Not particularly surprised. The windscreen definitely leaks and there's signs of water ingress from around the rear windscreen too - I'll look into that in due course.
There are some areas where the wiring will definitely be needing some TLC.
We've ascertained that there's also an earthing issue somewhere in the vicinity of the offside headlight as the indicator is back feeding into the sidelight circuit.
The fuel usage meter is currently dead as when the tank was replaced the sender for that apparently was also removed. They're pretty cheaply available though so that should be simple enough to reinstate. It doesn't actually give you any numbers, it's just a bar graph based on flow rate. There is a kit you can get which gives you an actual fuel gauge to fit in the same space in the dash, that's something I may also consider picking up as I do admit that I'd kind of like to have a fuel gauge.
The taped in switch was originally for a fog light installation, that will be ousted for a correct switch which actually fits in the dash which I'll probably run a reversing light with as that's actually useful.
With a really good deep clean throughout and a little bit of paintwork I think she will be looking a lot better.
There's been quite a lot of work done in the last couple of years. The rear suspension has been completely rebushed, a new exhaust has been fitted, new front brakes (including an upgrade to the disk brakes as fitted to the later VW engined cars), a new fuel tank was fitted, and all new electronic ignition components have been fitted.
All in all, quite taken with it so far. It's a wonderfully bizarre little car, and my immediate reaction is that yes it has shortcomings, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad in any way as the urban legends would have you believe. Yes it is basic, it's lightweight, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as thrown together as the Ladas I've owned. It strikes me as a much more cleverly designed little car.
Of course it dawned a cold, humid, rainy morning. Perfect!
The first hour of the journey was basically spent frantically wiping the windscreen every 30 seconds. Having the passenger window wide open and the driver's quarterlight open would *just about* keep the screen clear if I was on the open road, but every time I stopped it would almost instantly fog up again. It made the trip between MK and Oxford really quite stressful as the traffic was stop-start in several areas. Stress levels weren't helped by my phone's windscreen mount exploding about ten minutes into the trip. Thankfully thereafter it cleared up and I was able to engage juggernaut mode on the dual carriageway/motorway down towards Portsmouth. The remainder was a fairly pleasant trip aside from being freezing cold. I regretted my decision not to take gloves as my fingers were well and truly numb by the time I got there.
I then spent far longer than I had planned sitting here waiting to head for home.
Simply because I had to wait for Hagerty to answer their phones...which usually is a matter of about 30 seconds. Of course today it took 20 minutes. Nevertheless, I eventually got through and they then got the policy transferred from the P4 to the Trabant in less than five minutes and we were off.
Two and a half hours later we arrived home.
Only actually ten minutes later than Google had estimated which I reckon wasn't bad at all.
I can't quite say she didn't miss a beat, as she did have one singular cough after I'd been sitting in a queue for about 15 mins at one point, I'm guessing one of the plugs had just loaded up a bit as it never happened again. Aside from that though she ran flawlessly and was quite content to buzz along at 56mph with plenty more to go. I was deliberately taking things easy as I know this car hasn't been in all that regular use for a while, so a 120 mile motorway run was a bit of a trial by fire. So I just slotted myself in with the HGVs and bumbled along.
We used almost exactly half a tank of fuel, which by my math equates to approximately 45mpg, not bad at all. I'll get exact figures when I fill up.
This is quite possibly the strangest little car I've ever driven.
Okay...*nearly* the strangest car I've driven...that title probably falls to this little menace.
I guess my brain was kind of prepared for it to be in some ways reminiscent of the Lada, but it really isn't (other than being exceptionally noisy at speed). In the Lada everything is heavy (except the excellent gear shift) and fairly vague. This is really the polar opposite. All of the controls are light (the clutch in particular you could press with a finger), and the car feels light and really nimble.
Actually gets up and goes a lot better than I had expected given the blazing 26bhp on tap.
The fact they have put sound deadening on the underside of the bonnet to attempt to tame the ridiculous amount of noise generated by that engine does somewhat amuse me.
The vast majority of my experience with two stroke engines has been with a couple of Detroit diesels...which share one thing with this, the fact that biblical amounts of noise are generated...I don't think a bit of padding really is going to make much difference!
The car was absolutely happy to buzz along at 55mph and definitely had more to give it needed - but I was definitely taking it easy on the trip home. Not least because I was having to lean halfway into the passenger seat to see where I was going because the driver's side wiper is loose on the spindle and only wipes about 1/3 of it's intended stroke (most of the time).
Ride is a little bouncy but not at all jarring. Kind of unavoidable in such a light car, especially with such a comically short wheelbase. Surprisingly comfortable I found, even if the driving position is exceedingly odd.
The seat is very low to the floor, and because of where the wheel tub is the pedals are massively offset to the right, the accelerator being well over the centre line of the car I think.
Nice little period accessory on the dash, intended to track fuel usage.
This currently seems to be jammed up but I'll see if I can get it working. Would be nice to be able to set it to when I next needed to plan to refuel.
A feature this car shares with the Lada is a heater which could double as a blast furnace.
It is *fiercely* effective. First air cooled car I've driven which actually has a halfway decent heater, even if it did take me a few minutes to figure out the controls.
Which is a good thing as otherwise keeping the windscreen demisted might have been a bit of a chore given I've apparently got the optional indoor swimming pool specified.
Not particularly surprised. The windscreen definitely leaks and there's signs of water ingress from around the rear windscreen too - I'll look into that in due course.
There are some areas where the wiring will definitely be needing some TLC.
We've ascertained that there's also an earthing issue somewhere in the vicinity of the offside headlight as the indicator is back feeding into the sidelight circuit.
The fuel usage meter is currently dead as when the tank was replaced the sender for that apparently was also removed. They're pretty cheaply available though so that should be simple enough to reinstate. It doesn't actually give you any numbers, it's just a bar graph based on flow rate. There is a kit you can get which gives you an actual fuel gauge to fit in the same space in the dash, that's something I may also consider picking up as I do admit that I'd kind of like to have a fuel gauge.
The taped in switch was originally for a fog light installation, that will be ousted for a correct switch which actually fits in the dash which I'll probably run a reversing light with as that's actually useful.
With a really good deep clean throughout and a little bit of paintwork I think she will be looking a lot better.
There's been quite a lot of work done in the last couple of years. The rear suspension has been completely rebushed, a new exhaust has been fitted, new front brakes (including an upgrade to the disk brakes as fitted to the later VW engined cars), a new fuel tank was fitted, and all new electronic ignition components have been fitted.
All in all, quite taken with it so far. It's a wonderfully bizarre little car, and my immediate reaction is that yes it has shortcomings, but it doesn't seem anywhere near as bad in any way as the urban legends would have you believe. Yes it is basic, it's lightweight, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as thrown together as the Ladas I've owned. It strikes me as a much more cleverly designed little car.
