Faults:

The boots a little reluctant to close at times.

The tachometer only works on special occaison's.

General Comments:

I fell in love with this car about half a second into first gear, as I took it for a test drive.

I drove away with the zippiest, most responsive car I'd ever owned.

Faults:

Motor for the water spray stopped at 157,000.

Front parking light, indicator and side indicator all blew.

Small amount of oil leaking through the Turbo, very minor though.

General Comments:

I bought the car for 3000 bucks and I've go to say I'm pretty happy with what I've got.

The guy who used to own it owned a paint shop so he gave it this beautiful deep red paint job, rustproofed it and everything, and it just looks brand new.

The performance is excellent. For an old/small turbo this thing really hauls, and the engine sounds strong all the way to red line .

The turbo kicks in beautifully, and you really feel it. I've driven some older turbos and it feels like the engine is just naturally aspirated.

One year on and I'm still not sick of that turbo boost, it just feels awesome, it's a lot of fun.

An aftermarket turbo timer has also been fitted. It's funny getting out of the car with the engine still running, and seeing people getting all worried I'm just walking away with my car still running, and not sure whether they should say something.

Unfortunately the guy's also got a heavy duty hydraulic clutch in there, and hadn't driven it for a few years, so the cluch is just so heavy, and makes fast performance times a drag to obtain.

I've clocked her 0 - 100km/hr in about 9.8sec, and that's with a hopeless start, and with a heavy, sticky clutch.

I managed to get her to a top speed of 160 km/hr, and she was as steady as a rock, my friend didn't even know we were going that fast until I told him.

The interior isn't too shabby, turbo written just about everywhere. The seats aren't too bad, and the carpet interior is acceptable, I've seen much worse (1986 Toyota Supra is just one to note). Colouring is pretty good too.

Steering is very direct, and the suspension is pretty good, letting you know what's going on with the road, but also being very livable, I reckon my Barina had worse suspension travel.

Handles pretty well, I've got 14inch wheels on it, and I can still rip them up through a corner, even when I don't have the turbo at full boost.

But the car does grip well through a corner, and is able to carry a fair bit of corner speed before the front tyres lose traction.

Also, the car is very steady, with the steering remaining straight under bumpy roads.

Fuel economy is excellent, 30 bucks fills her up, and I get about 300km out of her if I flog her a bit, 500km - 600km if I drive around normally.

I'd like to replace the clutch on it, give it a lighter one, and also put new extractors through it. Unfortunately I'm a university student, so I'm not loaded with cash. I might even put in a chip if I see fit.

Thankfully there's a catalytic converter put through, so I can run it on unleaded.

I've only had it for a year so I can't really say too much about parts and maintenance costs. But from what I've researched, parts etc are well priced.

Overall though, for 3 grand, I'm really, really happy. You could buy a lot worse for that kind of money, and a lot slower.

A really good buy if you can find one with low kilometers.