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Just for fun I thought I would contrast my 1990 Audi Coupe Quattro with my 1996 Saab 900se 5 door. The Audi is totally stock but my Saab has a big swaybar, an air intake, a performance exhaust and a performance intercooler. The Saab also has bigger wheels than the Audi and low profile Z rated tires. New, they both cost the same.
When I sit in the Audi and start it, every part of the interior feels heavy, damped and smooth. The doors are solid slabs of galvanized steel and shut with a vault-like thump. The seats are deep buckets, black, hard leather buckets. The steering wheel is hard and thin. A long hood is clearly visible ahead of me and my hair lightly brushes the ceiling. The steering wheel is always just a little too far away (and not adjustable) but the shifter is the perfect distance. The dashboard is a solid, heavy platform covered in satin black padded vinyl. All seams are tight, solid and nearly invisible. 5 analog gauges (that are impossible to read while driving) tell me the status of the oil and battery voltage. The Audi feels like it handles better. The AWD somehow imparts confidence even on dry pavement. Overall the Audi feels smooth and solid. The non-turbo 5 cyclinder engine is sweet sounding and very high-revving (7000rpm) but not powerful. Launching the car is very easy due to the AWD. The Audi is absolutely unstoppable in snow. The rear differential can be manually locked from the comfort of my heated seats and the ABS brakes can be deactivated to take advantage of the "snowplow" effect that can occur in deep snow, making locked wheels better at stopping. The Audi simply feels analog. All funtions can be changed and observed. All functions also break.
When I sit in my Saab, my eye immediately flicks to the right of the tach. I want to see that turbo needle come to life. That turbo is the heart of the car. The seats are nice but I slide around in them like butter in a pan. The dash is a hard glossy plastic and a bit rattly after 100k niles. The ergonomics are perfect for me at 6'4". Plenty of headroom. The shifter is too far away. The *whump* of the engine starting is very nice. The key location is totally natural to me. Once driving, it's immediately obvious that the Saab will easily stride past 100mph with no effort at all. 60mph happens in second gear and if I did a good job launching it, the 0-60 time is so short as to be negligible. The power of the Saab is simply far more than traffic, the police or the car's fine handling can deal with. As I enter a few familiar bends, the Saab feels precise and comes out of the corners as if fired out of a cannon. I take a corner at a maximum of 60 in the Saab that were maximum 50 in the Audi yet the Saab feels much more on edge. The Saab tells me nothing about how it's doing mechanically. I have to listen to the sound of it. An idiot light is all the car has to tell me that something is wrong. On the positive side, things rarely go wrong.
Both cars are a delight. The gearboxes feel about the same. If I modified the Audi it might equal or even edge out the mighty 2.0 turbo but it won't haul a couch or 6 bags of concrete.
posted by 207.55.91...
, Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:39:41
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