![]() ![]() While we really loved the little 5, getting the car note off the family balance sheet on the liability side was a huge bonus with a new baby (and new day care bills). I was on the winning end of this deal hands down. At work, the planets lined up and I had a chance to get a company car when someone quit and the bosses were stuck with it. My time with the Protégé was short and absolutely trouble free and lasted barely 18 months. All in all, it was by far the most enjoyable car I’d had to that point. Not bad certainly, but for a small car sold in international markets I thought it would do much better. 24-29 MPG combined was what you could expect. I think it was limited by the four-speed automatic and lacked a tall high gear. That combined with the rougher ride meant longer road trips weren’t this car’s strong suit. It was also a rather loud car without much sound deadening insulation. Though you could dial back the sensitivity with a little knob way under the dash…it was super easy to set off. It had a factory-installed car alarm, which didn’t work well. Downsides? The suspension was in my view a bit too harsh… you’d feel the face of a dime if you ran over it. It was put together well, if giving off feeling just a bit tinny. The fabric seats were firm and supportive. Inside it had an attractive instrument panel with white gauges. ![]() It cut a handsome profile in “ticket me red”, and as this is a heavy domestic car area, there just weren’t too many of these on the road and it always was interesting to people. It was “flingable” and was glued to the road and didn’t complain when you threw it into a corner faster than you normally would (or should). It was responsive and peppy rather than fast, but it certainly felt quick. The little 2.0 liter, 130 HP inline twin-cam 4 had a pleasant and burbly exhaust note. While I had plenty of econoboxes to that point, they were nothing at all like this. The 5 introduced me to what a well handling car was like, and how a car didn’t have to be expensive or fast to be fun. You could fit a road bicycle in back, among other things. Not to mention, I have always loved the utility of a hatchback. I drove a red one and was quickly taken in by the spunky personality of the car, which was like a happy puppy, and I was sold. And…better yet, they were running a 5-year 0.00% APR finance special which made it very affordable for us. And it meant that I could get my sisters Ford discount on it. They were sharing technology and platforms. Ford at that time had a controlling interest and long partnership with Mazda dating back the early 70’s. ![]() And a light bulb went on in my brain reminding me of the Ford-Mazda connection. Then across the street in the motor mall, I spied the new Mazda Protégé 5’s sitting in front of the joint Mazda-Subaru dealer. Perhaps a switch to the Ford Family? Maybe a Focus hatch or wagon? Whoa, wait, we stuck Adam in the back of the Grand Prix all the time, and it really wasn’t a big deal, now was it? Really? Long story short, I had to get her buy-in on a big-ticket purchase like this and I wasn’t going to get it, so I had to move on. The missus, however, did not want a 2 door, as it was more difficult to get our not quite 1-year old boy in and out in the car seat. And I was pleasantly surprised and excited to see they were just inside the outer limits of what we could afford…. C was not driving a manual, no way, no how. They were heavily discounted, lower trim level automatics, which was good because Mrs. One evening, I discovered that there were a couple of past model year GTI’s (2001 Mk4’s) sitting on the lot at the local VW dealer, in white and silver. It was winter time in late January 2002, a generally slow time in the car business especially here in the snow belt. Doing some high-level pricing on-line, I quickly realized that this was just a wee bit out of my price range. The Volkswagen Golf GTI was always one of my all-time favorite cars since it came out in 1983, and I decided to start there. A base Golf or Jetta was certainly affordable for us and made sense, but I always (and still do) coveted a hot hatch. Reciprocation or not, there was absolutely no way we could afford to buy or lease an Audi like an A-4. At this point in the early 2000’s, both brands were resurgent in the U.S., especially Audi. I liked my contacts there, was treated well, and I really wanted to reciprocate in some small way. Our company was doing a lot of business with VW/Audi at the time and I was on the account. GM was still in a of a product funk, pre-bankruptcy. Nothing there was really exciting me at all at that time with their product. Sure, I could do my predictable same-same and go right to a GM dealer like I always did. I was a bit perplexed in terms of which direction to go. Stinging from the sudden demise of my Grand Prix as referenced two COAL’s ago, it was now time to focus on the next vehicle. ![]()
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