First Impressions...

[AnitaInKC]

Awesome, bmx!! Enjoy.
Hopefully, I've only got about a month to wait! Yippee!!

[SmartCard]

Originally Posted by bmx43

-cargo space is surprisingly large. golf clubs (without driver) fit in no problem.

What's so good about being about to fit your golf clubs in and having no driver to drive to the golf course! ;)

Thanks for the good report....esp about the power steering (or lack thereof!)

Congrats!

[propes]

I took a test drive this morning, and most of my comments ring with the others that have posted here.

First and foremost, the test drive did NOT help my obsession over this car one bit, and it's going to drive me nuts having to wait for the late 1300s to come around.

Drove a red cabrio, and it is red, but with an orange tint - it will look different in different lighting conditions.

Shift delay: yup, it's there, but I didn't find it to be a big deal. Going from a dead stop into a turn does make the paddle shifters useless, so using the floor shifter worked well. I've also never driven a manual before, and I took to the paddle and floor shifters quite easily. My wife drove the same car in automatic mode, and yes, the shift leap is much softer when in manual mode. Neither of which proved to be a huge detriment.

I took the car onto the freeway twice, and it accelerated quite nicely onto I-494 (which has really sucky entrance ramps) - the maneuverability proved quite nice, and while it was slower to get to 65/70 than my current car, I didn't seem a problem, and I didn't have to floor it - most likely it's because I drive unfamiliar cars slower than I normally do (I had to think about going faster on the freeway).

A little bumpy, but taking the Saturn home, I realized it wasn't any worse than our current car - it may have been better.

This was the first day of test drives, so we definitely got a lot of attention: photos taken by onlookers while my wife and I swapped seats - lots of gawking on the streets, followed by my wife imploring those same people to watch the road.

I'm really really sold on this car. Now if I didn't have to wait another 10 months or more.

[rerruf]

I also test drove a cab today, the shifting was far superior to the fall road tour car I drove. Having said that however, there is definitely a learning curve involved. I found that if I let off the gas briefly just as a shift was going to occur the shift was very smooth. If I kept the gas down the shift was much worse. I did not even try the paddle shift, I wanted to first master shifting without. My drive included interstate driving, I looked down and I was going 71, no problem with merging, or reaching speed. Within a few miles everyone should be able to master the technique. Fit, finish everthing was better than I had hoped. The absloute worst part of the test drive was forcing myself to return the car. Fun, fun, fun.