Let's face it, cars are crap. Give me a bike any time - well, any time it isn't raining, snowing, foggy, icy, I have a heap of climbing kit, a mountain bike or a couple of hundred-weight of chocolate do-nuts to transport.
Of course, as any fool know, the Mark 2 Volkswagen Polo is perhaps the ultimate in desirable four-wheeled transport. For starters it has, errr, four wheels, seats, heating and an engine. My carefully considered buying decision was prompted mainly by desperation to avoid a 500 mile drive to Scotland in a shagged Vauxhall Carlton. A wise move as it turned out since the Carlton's heating broke down en route and the temperature dropped to around minus 25-degrees C. The owner's initials are AA, not entirely, I think, coincidental.
It was sheer fluke that I came across Rude in the local VW dealer - I was just looking for a functional 1300cc Polo, one of the vile, square-backed, bread van type mini estates would have done, but all they had was a flippin' Coupe. 'Alloys, sports steering wheel, five-speed box, rev counter, 'rare' factory sunroof - it was the top of the range at the time,' smarmed the salesman. Boy, was I impressed. Hang on, was I?
I'd already driven a 1050 Polo and it was dire - gutless and unstable. The S - that's S as in Slightly better - has wider 165-60-13 tyres and felt much more stable, plus the 1300 motor in a relatively light car makes it quite zippy, well up to about 40mph anyway.
Despite my innate cynicism, I've become quite fond of it, though the Mark 2 Polo has several inherent flaws. First, the brakes are utterly shite; there's no servo so you need to stand on them with incredible force and even then the car barely slows, well relative to my bike anyway. Second, the nature of the front suspension means that the steering tends towards the vague; Golfs, which are apparently better in this respect, have two lower mountings for the Macpherson strut, the Polo has only one, so when you brake or corner the steering geometry goes haywire.
As a crazed biker I found this a little irksome, particularly when I nearly bounced off the road coming down off Rannoch Moor. The solution, and one I'd recommend to any Polo owner with sporting pretensions (or a lack of self restraint) was a set of Koni Sport dampers plus H and R lowering springs. The latter are about 35mm lower than stock and slightly firmer, the former actually damp the spring movement instead of making like a pogo stick. I also changed the strut bearing thingees, a good move as one was utterly shagged.
The improvement is considerable, the car now sits very flat in the bends where before it felt like the suspension was going to unload and catapult yer into the shrubbery, steering is much improved and the ride is acceptable unless you go for the really big bumps. I'm wary of speed humps and off road car parks now, but so far so good. The only real problem I've had so far is a blown head gasket, apparently a bit of a weakness with the 1272cc motor.
If I had loads of money (I don't) and nothing better to spend it on (I do) I'd make a few other improvements starting with a brake upgrade - Mark 1 Golf GTi calipers bolt straight on as do the vented discs - and then either some savage engine tuning or a transplant from a wrecked G40 Polo with its supercharged 1272cc motor.
But can I be bothered? For a small car Rudolph'll do me thanks very much. The engine is surprisingly refined and quite nippy even with half the horsepower of my motorcycle and I wouldn't want a flash motor, specially as they tend to go walkies round here. To be honest though, going walkies might just be quicker. Better than a Volvo 340 mind.
If you really want to know more about Polos, or you own one and feel a dark need to correspond with fellow owners (and yes, we all have those sad moments) then you'll be needing Nigel Middleton's Polo Register site which sports links to other Polo pages and handy hints for improving your own VW with a hole in it. All it takes is a certain suspension of disbelief...
