Seat Ibiza Ecomotive
Posted by Sam Philip at 4:30PM on Friday 05 October, 2007 0 Comments
There's something deliciously improper about thrashing a 'green' car: big revs, tyre squeal, inappropriate edge-of-corner braking.
Maybe it's the incongruity of it all - the equivalent of attempting the 100-metre sprint in hemp sandals, or maybe it's the illicitness of being very eco-unfriendly in a very eco-friendly car.
Whatever the reason, it serves Seat right for choosing to launch the Ibiza EcoMotive on beautiful, winding Spanish coastal roads. And for plastering the test car in Big Green Slogans - à la hire Priuses.
See, the Ibiza EcoMotive, if you hadn't guessed by the name, is Seat's take on the BlueMotion formula: low-resistance tyres, reduced drag, longer gearing, lighter. The results are impressive - CO2 emissions are down to 99g/km if you can live without aircon, while economy is up at 74.3mpg. That makes it the joint-cleanest car in the UK, alongside its sister, the Polo BlueMotion.
I'm supposed to tell that this will save you pounds and pounds on your road tax and fuel bills and help you escape the congestion charge and pay for an Inuit labourer to rebuild the ice caps. But you know all of that, and what I'm going to tell you is far more important: the Ibiza EcoMotive is actually quite a laugh to trash around.
We're not talking M3-levels of tactile rear-end feedback, mind. But the Ibiza has nice direct steering, decent brakes and, with the green weight-loss modifications - feels fairly flyweight, too.
Best of all, those skinny tyres relinquish grip in a nicely progressive fashion: the tyre squeal starts almost as soon as you turn in, and simply gets louder and louder to warn you how much control you've got of the back end. You could virtually drive it by ear alone.
In fact, at the end of a couple of hours it had even spawned a new motoring phrase - 'going Ecomotive': passive plough-on understeer easily corrected by a stamp on the brakes and a flick of the wheel.
OK, I know it's a bit childish and - perhaps more importantly - contrary to the eco-valiant aims of the car. But there is a point here: the punters who'll buy a car merely on the basis of its carbon footprint are few and far between. For the rest of us, there's always going to be a balancing act between green concerns - or fiscal concerns, as they're increasingly becoming - and having a laugh.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the EcoMotive is the final answer. By any objective standard, its performance is as compromised as a vicar in a brothel. But at least it has a bit more of a sense of fun than any BlueMotion-type car I've driven so far, and for that it should be applauded.
So here's the question: what do you reckon is the best green/performance compromise out there? And no, not the Tesla. Not until it actually exists.
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