My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Thu Mar 4, 1999

Test drive of the Mazda Eunos Cosmo 13B Type S-CCS

Last night's test-drive was a Mazda Eunos Cosmo 13B Type S-CCS, availble used in "creek blue mica" during days 20 to 29 inclusive, for a mere Cr9710. I think I remember reading about this bargain somewhere else. Unlike the "Roadster" Eunos models, which are the underpowered sports cars known as "Miata" in North America, this beast seems like a mid-sized family sedan. In spite of double wishbone front and rear, it wallows quite a lot.

I took this car, unmodified (there is little cash left over, obviously) to the Sunday Cup, and won all three races. Surprisingly, I did best at the Autumn Ring-Mini, qualifying second and winning fairly easily. At High Speed Ring I qualified last and fought to a win; the problem is the mushy suspension causes this car to lose even more speed if you attack the banked curves too hard than is the case with other cars. At Grand Valley, the qualifying time was respectable but last, and I did manage to win.

Since I wanted to check on some of Nick's specs for the Subaru Legacy '93 Touring Wagon GT, I ended up test driving the "crimson mica" one from the used stock of that same time period. (Purchasing it with prize money from the Sunday Cup). A bargain for a Subaru at Cr13710, this is still too expensive to be an option as an initial purchase.

Anyway, this car, with no modifications, handily won the Sunday Cup, coming close to pole (second again) at the Autumn Ring-Mini, and convincingly winning all three races. It even qualified fourth at Grand Valley East, which means it is really competitive. One strange thing about this car was that the "demo driver" who takes over after you finish your race always got it sideways, and needed fairly vicious opposite-lock, in the hairpins.

Another humorous feature of the demo driver is that if you give it a maxed GTO TwinTurbo it cannot keep it out of the kitty litter on the first hairpin on the Autumn Ring.