Well, once again I find myself at the end of the month trying to figure out how I can add this car to my collection!
I have a garage, infact I've got a couple of garages, but the problem with this is that they all have cars in them! I think that I would like like explore this little car a bit further, to be honest I'd quite like to explore it for the whole Summer. But that would mean the end of the whole project. I have even offered it to several of my family members, and friends for free, on the understanding that this time next year I get it back in about the same condition, and with the same sort of length of MOT on it. But again, no takers. This of course means that only one thing can happen next, and so...
Away goes car #5 DAMMIT!! But before I get
into telling you about my month with the little Street Ka, I just need
to get this out of the way first, please bear with me. When I found this car in the first place it was because I saw it being photographed in a car park, while I was photographing the Jaguar to sell it. Wondering if the girl who was photographing it was doing so in
order to sell it I asked her if that was her plan. Yes she said. So I enquired as to how much she would
like for it, and how much MOT was on it, It was MOTd yesterday she said,
and she was looking for just £650! Well, I thought that was a pretty good deal. So, after some procrastinating I bought it, and I'm glad I did, because although it's taken me five months, but finally I've made a profit!! Now, I realise that buying a car for £650 and selling it for £670 isn't the
biggest profit in the world, and I know that I'm over looking the fact
the ebay charged me £10 to list the thing as an auction style listing,
and then £20 final value fees, which actually means that I infact made a
loss of £10, but FUNK ME, that was close, that is the closest I've come
to making my money back in this little project all year!! Besides just
£10 for all the fun I've had blasting about in this little beauty with
the roof down all month, that's a bargain. After the Jag I was starting
to get quite concerned even to the point that I had to sell my
motorbike so I could continue playing, so I'm counting this as a win,
infact I'm even gonna celebrate with a nice cup of tea and a Tunnocks
Caramel!
Actually I decided to really push the boat out and have two, because when I took
the first one out, the second one looked all lonely left in the pack on
it's own... It was for the best, believe me, leaving that Tunnocks Caramel alone in the cupboard all night would've kept me awake!
Now then, what can I tell you about my month of Street Ka ownership,
well, first of all it's the first car I've bought this year that isn't
an estate car, therefore finally bringing the year of the wagon to an end,
before it actually became that! Apart from that, for the most part it
was fantastico!! But of course there were a few nagative points of
owning a Street Ka. Firstly, for me, I prefer the face of the original
Ka. I like the big bumper of the StreetKa, but I think I prefer the bigger looking headlights of the original Ka, but I've been looking, and it would appear that there is no bumper with spoiler and big headlights in the Ka line up anywhere, so I guess I'd just have to live with this little niggle.
I'm presuming that all Street Ka's had the facelifted, um, face? I
just think the original one looks a bit cuter!! Strewth, I'm such a
girl, my month of Street Ka ownership has made me into a right Pansy! I realise that the original face is still under that big bumper,
and it wouldn't be too much trouble to change it, but then would it work
with the back bumper? I dunno, perhaps the best thing to do would be
locate a rust free one of each, one for driving while the sun shines,
and one for driving when it's raining. I mean they're quite small, I could probably get both into a parking space if I tried really hard!
While I'm talking about the looks of the thing I must say that no matter
which face is prettier, I think the First generation Ka's (1996–2008)
are still alot better looking in my opinion than the Ka's that have come
along since. The current crop seem to have lost their quirkyness, their
identity, and their fun car vibe, a bit like the original Twingo is a
lot more interesting than the disappointing and boring looking models that have followed it.
Secondly, only two seats, so not very practical for anyone who has a Wife and two little Monsters to ferry about, although, having other cars to
blast about in sure does help, but there have been a couple of times
when both of my two little Monsters have insisted I pick them up in the Ka, which
meant picking one of them up and dropping them off home, then going back
for the other one, before going home again, turning the three mile
round trip into a six mile round trip. I wonder if perhaps I could get away with fitting a bench seat in the StreetKa? That might work. Actually, thinking about it, the extra little trip is really nothing to complain about, it just meant that I got more seat
time to blast about in it!
Lastly, I thought that this, being a little bit impractical might
suppress my desires for another car that sits in the back of my mind as
it would also be an impractical two seater convertible. But it hasn't,
if anything it's kinda made matters worse, because now instead of
thinking, that would be ridiculous, it's not practical at all, I think,
yeah, why don't I have one, I made it work with the little Street Ka,
why wouldn't it work with that?
Well, why wouldn't it work with that? After the Street Ka I can't think of a
reason that I couldn't make it work with a Eleventh generation
(2002–2005) Thunderbird as well... Niether for that matter can Mrs Clint, who, when asked what she thought of the idea replied with, "I dunno what's stopping you?" Hmm... Me neither!
I will admit that it not having the bumper I like, and being a bit impractical is not the biggest list of 'cons' in
the world is it? But thats all I could think of, and I had to really try
hard to think of them. I've really enjoyed this little beauty!
So then, moving
on to the 'pros' list, well it's a pretty short list because literally EVERYTHING else about owning it
was awesome!!
In my far too short ownership of this little gem I took the
odometer from 118,508 to 119,172 miles which means I covered about 809
fun filled miles! In these fun filled miles the Ka managed to drink
20.55 UK Gallons of go-go juice which means I was getting approximately
39.36 (S)miles per gallon from Ford's open top little funster! I must
admit I was surprised at this as I thought I would've got a bit more,
but, when you drive it, it does seem to egg you on, and I found that
quite often I was pushing the loud pedal a little harder than I might
usually do... This, as a rule is no good for high MPG figures! But it's
freakin' excellent for putting a huge silly grin on your face!!
The 1600cc
engine buzzes the little lightweight Ka along very nicely, and with
about 94bhp (of course some of them horseys will have bolted as don't
forget, it is 17 years old now!) I never found it wanting for power. I
think that it was fast enough to get you in trouble if you pushed it
really hard, but with a low-slung driving position and a low centre of
gravity, and having a wheel placed exactly on each corner with no over
hanging bodywork meant that it handles really, really well as its looks
suggest it should. Cornering is flat, the steering is sharp and the
brakes are responsive. It's a fun car to drive, it's very 'point and
squirt' a bit like driving an original Mini, just not so cramped inside.
This fantastic handling doesn't come at the expense of the ride either,
which is supple and copes well with most road surfaces, although as
mentioned earlier the front ball joints knock and clunk away over every
lump and bump in the road! But because of how well the suspension is set up,
and the fact that it is not a stupidly fast car I think that you'd have
to be a spazzer of biblical proportions to get yourself in trouble in
one of these, either that or you would have to be some sort of kamikaze
pilot!!
Sadly, if you were such a person, and did push it past it's
cababilities I don't think you would fare well in it, I'm not sure those
roll over hoops would help you much as they feel, and sound (when you
tap them with something) like they are very light duty steel tubing,
almost like they were made from exhaust pipe tubing. I have a feeling
that they are more there for show than for safety, and I think that
should you be unlucky enough to roll one over, it would not end well.
Hopefully I am wrong about this, I mean why would Ford bother putting
them there if they did nothing? Of course I didn't pull all the interior
trim out to have a look at where the roll over hoops joined the body,
or what exactly they were made from, I just hoped, probably like
everyone does, that Ford had indeed made them strong enough to be safe,
and not just look the part! Moving on...
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my, um scalp, warm smell from the
chippy, rising up through the air, up ahead in the distance, I saw a
shimmering light, my head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to
stop for a bite! I'm not sure how Don Henley, Glenn Frey, or Don Felder
would feel about me bastardising their lyrics from Hotel California like
this, but there we go! So then, on to the interior...
I have heard it said that the dash on the Street Ka is the thing that
really lets it's interior down as it is the same as the original Ka, and
is an old design dating back to the first of the Ka's which were
introduced on 11 September 1996 as a small and low-cost addition to the
Ford range. The functional, basic, look doesn't live up to the promise
of the exterior styling. But I disagree with that, it is the same old
dash, that's for sure, but it's fun a quirky design still looks
interesting, and continues to suit the updated looks of the exterior
bodywork. I like how it looks, it's fun, I still love that odd little
oval clock with it's mis-matched hands, it's cool. The only thing is for
me I'd like to have a few more gauges in the dashboard. I think this
would make it feel a bit sportier, but you need to remember that this is
a car that was designed and built to be cheap enough to be bought by a
single girl about town, which is who it is aimed at, hence the lack of
proper information provided by gauges, and instead a rather impressive
bank of idiot lights!
Still not to worry, the interior is not a bad
place to be, the leather seats as its the LUXURY model remember, so no cloth
seats here, are quite supportive, and are big enough to be
comfortable even after a long drive by a fat bloke. I would also say that there is
probably a bit more room than the original tin top Ka, which also helps
raise the comfort levels of a long drive as I like to stretch out a bit, I can't stand being huddled up behind the wheel, my belly would rub on it! The pedals are a bit
close together for my liking, and as I remermber they were too close in
the tin top model too. Driving it in my steel toe capped work boots
proved to be a bit of a game as I tended to put my foot on more than one
pedal at once, however donning a pair of Converse All-Stars, and I could dance on the pedals with all the accuracy of Fred Astair and
Ginger Rogers which made driving the little Ka a very enjoyable experience,
and quite a lot of fun!
Even though this is the LUXURY Ka, the interior
was pretty spartan, but then to be fair I reckon you're unlikely to
spend much time looking around the cabin whilst you're driving, you'll
be far too busy watching the road as you cruise along it. One thing I feel I must mention is the heater, this was damn well excellent. I spent as
much time as I could with the roof down, I knew I wasn't going to have
this little thing long, so I wanted to experience going topless for as
much time as possible. I'm talking about the car by the way, as a fat
bloke I don't go topless much at all, it's not a pretty sight! So
anyway, on several of my little drives I was coming home long after dark, and even though it's the
summer, once the big orange orb disappears below the horizon it still got pretty chilly.
So I would just roll up the windows, and set the heating controls to
'well done' and this was enough, even though I was still getting a bit
of wind on the top of my bald head, I was still warm enough to be
comfortable. It was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed every trip in this
lovely little car, I pretty much enjoyed everything about driving it, I would even go as far to say that it is a drivers car. I reckon that if
you like to drive for no other reason than the pleasure of driving, then
male or female you could do worse than getting your hands on a little
Street Ka, they're great, really great. If I was someone like Jay Leno with acres of
covered storage space for my massive car collection I would definately find space for one of these without any doubt!
OK, so maybe I do look more like Noddys friend Big Ears, rather than
Crockett from Miami Vice when I drive it, but thats cool, I'm so glad I had this car, and I was having far too much fun to worry about anything else that might have been niggling away in my mind, or how funny I looked. I would definately agree that perhaps this is a car that is clearly aimed at girls
rather than fat middle aged fellas, and so the hairy chested macho man feels too
ridiculous to get into it and drive it, but more fool them! To enjoy this little gem all you need
to do is hit the road with a big grin on your face and enjoy it. Roof
up, or roof down it is AWESOME!
Oh, but don't forget to wear the correct
sunglasses!
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