Post by racingteatray on Jun 4, 2019 16:18:26 GMT
Just back from 10 days’ early summer break in northern Italy and the south of France, via the “joys” of Milan’s Malpensa airport and one of Avis’ Class C “Renault Clio or similar” four-wheeled delights.
This time the Avis roulette wheel landed on…….drum roll……an Alfa Romeo Mito of all things. In white. Never my favourite colour for a car. I wasn’t best pleased and made a fuss. Too small. Too ancient a design. Just not what I wanted! But it turned out that at 10pm in the evening, the only alternative that didn’t involve paying very substantially more was a distinctly battered and smelly Ford Fiesta, which, despite being the new shape model and therefore per se more interesting than a Mito, was also in absolutely boggo spec with (scarred) plastic wheel-trims, a dash-screen so small a mouse would struggle to read it, 30k on the clock and no parcel-shelf. That latter detail was the killer one when you have to drive around with luggage in the car, so Mito it was. Not that the Mito was in the first flush of youth either, being over a year old and with over 15k kms on the clock, but it was in tidy condition, clean, not unduly whiffy and not missing anything, and at least well run-in. It also had a surprisingly deep boot that in fact swallowed all our luggage for 10 days with ease, although the loading lip is rather high.
And without wishing to spoil the fun up-front, I of course ended up quite liking it, much against my better judgement.
It was fitted with the 95bhp 1.3 JTDM turbodiesel donkey and a 5-speed manual gearbox, but I have absolutely no idea what trim level it was. The (surprisingly smart red Alfa shield-shaped) key didn’t say. It seemed reasonably ritzy/sporty, with 16” 5-spoke alloys, very effective air-con, comedy red-painted midget brake callipers, satin silver wing mirrors, front fogs and darkened rear glass. It also had a “uConnect” touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard which looked smart when turned off but turned out to have graphics from about 15yrs ago when turned on. I can’t imagine any Mito has any idea what Car-Play is.
And that rather set the tone for the interior which looked reasonably upmarket and stylish and had reasonably decent leathery touchpoints, but overall felt dated and some areas were pretty plasticky on closer inspection. In particular, the pixelated red display between the dials looked very familiar from my 2005 GTA, and that didn’t look particularly dernier cri back then either. But it did, surprisingly, have a perfectly supportive seat and overall (for me at any rate) remarkably comfortable driving position. I did over 1,500kms in it in 10 days, including a 6hr 500km schlepp from St Tropez back to Malpensa yesterday afternoon, and felt absolutely no discomfort whatsoever. In this respect, it was streets better than the new-shape A1 we had at Easter in which I simply could not find a position in which I didn’t get an aching left leg or backside after about half an hour. There’s of course more NVH than is desirable (I’d say that a 6-spd box would improve matters) but overall it made a much, much better motorway companion than I would ever have credited.
Importantly, it also drove surprisingly well on the twistier bits despite somewhat lifeless steering and a rather long clutch action. It rides quite firmly for a small hatch with a stiffer ride perhaps linked to some mildly “warm” pretensions that doesn’t particularly improve with speed, but the pay-off is reasonably tightly-controlled and biddable handling, which on some of the more alarmingly swooping bits of (not collapsed) elevated motorway near Genoa was much appreciated. 95bhp also gave it fairly peppy get-up-and-go, provided (a) you kept the DNA selector in Dynamic (which gives almost comically better throttle response – why you’d use any other setting except perhaps when stuck in a traffic jam is anyone’s guess) and (b) like any small TDI, you keep the revs up with judicious stirring of the actually quite decent gearbox to avoid it bogging down at low revs. It will cruise without fuss at what a glance on the internet tells me was pretty much its V-Max.
And, despite that sort of caning, as with the Cooper D I had last summer, it was another lesson in just how economical these small turbodiesels can be. In addition, it wasn’t even particularly agricultural in sound when whipped, although nevertheless always unmistakably a drinker from the dark pump. Over 1,539kms (which took us up to Lugano in Switzerland, then into Milan, then down to Portofino, then along the twisty undulating motorways past Genoa and Nice to St Tropez and then back to Milan), it consumed just 77 litres of diesel, which equates to an average of 56mpg. I call that damned good going given it has a 5-spd gearbox with what didn’t feel like particularly long gearing.
Another plus point is that it remains rather a cute-looking car. Some of the proportions aren’t perfect by any means but it grew on me, and winningly, it didn’t especially look like or feel like a just another boring rental car. Friends we visited all commented positively. I liked the frameless doors – those are a neat touch of style on a small hatchback which it shares with the MINI. We spent five days staying with friends in St Tropez, which is nothing if not a flashy sort of place full of flashy people driving flashy cars and lounging on even flashier boats. Not so much the “haves and have nots” but rather the “haves and have yachts”. And yet even on foreign plates and in white (actually a godsend in hot weather), the Mito didn’t make me feel horribly poor relation. It shares with the MINI and the Fiat 500 that sense of being the sort of small car you might have bought because you simply wanted a small car, and not merely because you couldn’t afford a bigger one.
So, to summarise, this is, unsurprisingly, not a car that one could ever recommend as a new purchase. It is simply too long in the tooth design-wise, unforgivably so on the tech front inside, and the ride will be too stiff for some. But as a second-hand run-around for a great deal less than Alfa wants new, it’s actually not without appeal. It’s different, it’s got a healthy dollop of charm and style, it’s reasonably spacious for the exterior dimensions, this diesel version manages to blend acceptable pep with fuel consumption to warm to Scroogiest of hearts, and it drives well enough, feeling comfortable on a motorway yet small and nimble around town.
I eat humble pie and beg its forgiveness for how rude about it I was when I first saw it.
This time the Avis roulette wheel landed on…….drum roll……an Alfa Romeo Mito of all things. In white. Never my favourite colour for a car. I wasn’t best pleased and made a fuss. Too small. Too ancient a design. Just not what I wanted! But it turned out that at 10pm in the evening, the only alternative that didn’t involve paying very substantially more was a distinctly battered and smelly Ford Fiesta, which, despite being the new shape model and therefore per se more interesting than a Mito, was also in absolutely boggo spec with (scarred) plastic wheel-trims, a dash-screen so small a mouse would struggle to read it, 30k on the clock and no parcel-shelf. That latter detail was the killer one when you have to drive around with luggage in the car, so Mito it was. Not that the Mito was in the first flush of youth either, being over a year old and with over 15k kms on the clock, but it was in tidy condition, clean, not unduly whiffy and not missing anything, and at least well run-in. It also had a surprisingly deep boot that in fact swallowed all our luggage for 10 days with ease, although the loading lip is rather high.
And without wishing to spoil the fun up-front, I of course ended up quite liking it, much against my better judgement.
It was fitted with the 95bhp 1.3 JTDM turbodiesel donkey and a 5-speed manual gearbox, but I have absolutely no idea what trim level it was. The (surprisingly smart red Alfa shield-shaped) key didn’t say. It seemed reasonably ritzy/sporty, with 16” 5-spoke alloys, very effective air-con, comedy red-painted midget brake callipers, satin silver wing mirrors, front fogs and darkened rear glass. It also had a “uConnect” touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard which looked smart when turned off but turned out to have graphics from about 15yrs ago when turned on. I can’t imagine any Mito has any idea what Car-Play is.
And that rather set the tone for the interior which looked reasonably upmarket and stylish and had reasonably decent leathery touchpoints, but overall felt dated and some areas were pretty plasticky on closer inspection. In particular, the pixelated red display between the dials looked very familiar from my 2005 GTA, and that didn’t look particularly dernier cri back then either. But it did, surprisingly, have a perfectly supportive seat and overall (for me at any rate) remarkably comfortable driving position. I did over 1,500kms in it in 10 days, including a 6hr 500km schlepp from St Tropez back to Malpensa yesterday afternoon, and felt absolutely no discomfort whatsoever. In this respect, it was streets better than the new-shape A1 we had at Easter in which I simply could not find a position in which I didn’t get an aching left leg or backside after about half an hour. There’s of course more NVH than is desirable (I’d say that a 6-spd box would improve matters) but overall it made a much, much better motorway companion than I would ever have credited.
Importantly, it also drove surprisingly well on the twistier bits despite somewhat lifeless steering and a rather long clutch action. It rides quite firmly for a small hatch with a stiffer ride perhaps linked to some mildly “warm” pretensions that doesn’t particularly improve with speed, but the pay-off is reasonably tightly-controlled and biddable handling, which on some of the more alarmingly swooping bits of (not collapsed) elevated motorway near Genoa was much appreciated. 95bhp also gave it fairly peppy get-up-and-go, provided (a) you kept the DNA selector in Dynamic (which gives almost comically better throttle response – why you’d use any other setting except perhaps when stuck in a traffic jam is anyone’s guess) and (b) like any small TDI, you keep the revs up with judicious stirring of the actually quite decent gearbox to avoid it bogging down at low revs. It will cruise without fuss at what a glance on the internet tells me was pretty much its V-Max.
And, despite that sort of caning, as with the Cooper D I had last summer, it was another lesson in just how economical these small turbodiesels can be. In addition, it wasn’t even particularly agricultural in sound when whipped, although nevertheless always unmistakably a drinker from the dark pump. Over 1,539kms (which took us up to Lugano in Switzerland, then into Milan, then down to Portofino, then along the twisty undulating motorways past Genoa and Nice to St Tropez and then back to Milan), it consumed just 77 litres of diesel, which equates to an average of 56mpg. I call that damned good going given it has a 5-spd gearbox with what didn’t feel like particularly long gearing.
Another plus point is that it remains rather a cute-looking car. Some of the proportions aren’t perfect by any means but it grew on me, and winningly, it didn’t especially look like or feel like a just another boring rental car. Friends we visited all commented positively. I liked the frameless doors – those are a neat touch of style on a small hatchback which it shares with the MINI. We spent five days staying with friends in St Tropez, which is nothing if not a flashy sort of place full of flashy people driving flashy cars and lounging on even flashier boats. Not so much the “haves and have nots” but rather the “haves and have yachts”. And yet even on foreign plates and in white (actually a godsend in hot weather), the Mito didn’t make me feel horribly poor relation. It shares with the MINI and the Fiat 500 that sense of being the sort of small car you might have bought because you simply wanted a small car, and not merely because you couldn’t afford a bigger one.
So, to summarise, this is, unsurprisingly, not a car that one could ever recommend as a new purchase. It is simply too long in the tooth design-wise, unforgivably so on the tech front inside, and the ride will be too stiff for some. But as a second-hand run-around for a great deal less than Alfa wants new, it’s actually not without appeal. It’s different, it’s got a healthy dollop of charm and style, it’s reasonably spacious for the exterior dimensions, this diesel version manages to blend acceptable pep with fuel consumption to warm to Scroogiest of hearts, and it drives well enough, feeling comfortable on a motorway yet small and nimble around town.
I eat humble pie and beg its forgiveness for how rude about it I was when I first saw it.
