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» Kayjey's story
Piet Deprez - something to say
Laura Kay's article
Hans Kise - Italy - one year after

:: Kayjey's story chapters

Getting to know the car
Buying my first car
The Coupe within reach
The Coupe arrives
The Coupe on the road
After a couple of weeks
» Two months after delivery
Seven months and dying for more. Unfortunately...

:: Two months after delivery

The Coupé does it all. It's been in the garage some time to get rid of the first rattles and squeaks, but I think it has something to do with me not having a sound system in the car. The pre-radio option was missing, so no radio until two weeks ago. No speakers, no antenna amplifier,... damn. But now everything is working, and I most of the time leave the sound of. Just to enjoy some other sounds...

Now there's 6.000 km on the counter. That means I can go and look for the limit now. The Coup� is a highly drivable car, even when doing serious cornering. You can control it very easy. Now the only thing is, the grip could be better. Then again, Belgian roads could be the ones to blame. But anyway, sliding happens reasonably early, but it won't give you an emotionless spin or uncontrollable situation. There's a large gap between starting to slide and really losing it. Which means the tires... won't last far over 30.000 km.

At the moment, I'm on the 'long tank'. This is my time in which I evaluate fuel economy, health and some other things on a car. I fill it up completely, and then drive slowly, won't accelerate over 2.000 rpm (expect on the freeway, at 120km/h, you're doing 2.500 or so),... This way, I've already driven 550km, and I think I'll be able to drive another 100 - 150. During the time, I analyze the sound of the engine when driving and when stationary, together with the overall reaction of the car. In other words, I check if it runs smoothly, reacts correctly,... A bit of a shame with a car like this, but I do it with every car and it's already made some things clear to me. In fact, this time, it appears to me something is slightly wrong with the ignition. Each day after about a minute of driving, when accelerating, there seems to be a missfire. I can hear a 'plop' from under the hood, then a few shakes as if the car is stalling. I'll have to get it checked. Driving slow is very bad for the engine, especially the Turbo. It dies on you and you'll need some weeks to get it back running okay.

The Coup� is really fun. One time, we were driving in a 'no speed limit' country and had the road for us alone. Down goes the throttle, up goes the revs. We were doing 130, which was changed to 220 after about 9 seconds. It's really great. It just keeps on accelerating. Now, after that, we could see some traffic coming up, so stopped racing. The engine was around 5.000 rpm. I'm planning to check the top speed out, but we'll have to go to a circuit to do so, since it would be irresponsible to do 250 on a regular road. Even if there is no speed limit. 220, okay. In this car, it's no offense to stability or anything, but at 250, there's no time to pay t much attention to other people on the road. So we'll just have to find ourselves a place where it can be done. Eagerly looking forward to it...