fiat

saluti a te

if you are either a regular reader of this blog or simply utilise weirdly specific google searches and keep finding my musings on certain subjects you will, i fear, be aware that every now and then i am expected to briefly drive different sorts of vehicles. this is not exactly my profession, look you see, and no it certainly is not a passion of mine. all the same, for some reason i feel obliged (if not compelled) to share thoughts, feelings and findings on them. 

as you have likely (or probably) worked out from the title, in this instance i was given one of them fiat things to drive. no, alas, i forgot to take the details of which model, but i am pretty sure the name of it began, or if you like commenced, with a b. hope that narrows it down. 

my feelings on this one are mostly neutral. to be fair i only drove around in it for a short while, and likely no more than 20 (or so) miles. nope, no idea what that is in kilometres. but, overall, it was totes a way better experience than the last hire van i had to drive. 

best aspects of this one? in no specific order (except it is in a specific order) - it's not French, it has an actual proper CD player and the windscreen wipers and wash jets were unexpectedly very satisfactory to watch do their thing. the latter there you can sort of experience in the below video. 

there's a fair bit of space in the cabin, too, making it almost comfortable to drive. a person of my size can, at the least, get in and out of it without too much in the way of contortion. not as flexible as i once was, to be sure. quite surprised to find the seat was reasonably comfortable, too. in may cases with this sort of vehicle, a van, it's often the case that they wish to break your spine (or do damage to it) as an inexplicable and never clarified form of punishment. 

sadly it's not all good in the cabin, or at the controls. for some reason they've gone with a (vaguely) minimalist approach with the steering wheel, instead of a practical one. it's like someone down at the design meeting went "go on, let's make a little part of it French, it will be good for a laugh". so one has to fight for a narrow gap in the steering wheel to see the important dashboard stuff like speed, fuel and what have you. with the dashboard being laid out in a mostly inefficient, highly French way. 

when i, and i would dare to presume most other people, am (are) driving, i want to be able to see and identify important information (in particular speed) in less than second. i have no wish to be distracted looking for where they have hidden something. 

easily the very (or most) worst thing about this fiat is that it is so incredibly boxy looking. rather surprising. if we are honest about it the main contribution Italy has made is to stand around looking all trendy and stylish, and no one does that as well as the Italians do. yes, true, they also produce footballers who can do a triple barrel forward roll and complete it with crying at the merest trigger, but that's for another time. the whole thing looks like one may expect to find a Lego van would, or worse still how i would draw a van. 

looks aren't everything, some say, but they are to Italy. it is simply not so that there is anything at all to Italy beyond the surface value of looks and appearance, so far as i am aware. even the handles are a little bit rubbish, looking at that picture above. maybe the Italians got bored of being outrageously beautiful all the time and decided to have a go at being dull and awkward. this van is the direct result of such dalliance. 

have (or had) i ever driven a fiat before? not knowingly. well, i have certainly been in one before, but the details of that are best left unsaid. really, what happened is not appropriate to write of here. i did tell a good friend once, in a diplomatic (as in censored) way, and they took a solemn vow never ever to purchase a fiat for fear of the psychological trauma. 

easily the worst, or rather most annoying, aspect of this fiat was the position of the driver's seatbelt. it is set ridiculously far back in the cabin. ne cannot grab it with their right hand without dislocating stuff and you have to full tilt turn and stretch to get it with your left hand. why? just why? i know the Dutch do something similar with door handles so as to force drivers to watch out for cyclists, but this cannot be anything to do with that. 

giving any sort of comment on how it performs in a driving sense (the business end of any vehicle, you would think) strikes me as unfair. the nice chap from the hire company spent some time pointing out to me all the known dents, bumps and scratches on the van before having me sign something or other. he likely spent more time highlighting these than i spent actually driving. absolutely no idea what sort of crazed lunatic drove it before i did, perhaps it was one of my verk colleagues or just someone who really, really likes pinball. 

for the most part, then, this fiat having a sixth (forward motion) gear was just about as superfluous as an Italian prime minister making plans for more than a year ahead. when approaching thirty or forty miles this van made the mechanical equivalent sounds of that smart "careful now" sign Father Dougal famously waved around in Father Ted. i may have done all that needed to be done with my life but this does not mean i wish for it to end (sorry to disappoint), so i wasn't going to "push it to the limit". or maybe i did, and that limit is around 38mph. also the brakes were fascinating. there was a distinct sense of chance to whether depressing the brake pedal would have any discernible effect. 

overall, this fiat joins a reasonably long list of vehicles which one ends up driving because they have to, rather than because they want to. i can scarcely fathom this century we live in, but surely automotive technology has gone beyond producing things like this simply for the sake of it. still, a win as it had an actual, proper CD player in it. decent speakers, too. 

essere eccellenti gli uni con gli altri!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!