Thursday, October 21, 2010

Gaga Frog inspired Rocco!

We’ve heard loud and clear by the Bar Council almost putting authoritarian stamp to the government to expedite court cases and of course out of the blue ‘individual rights’. Though in recent years I think Bar has moved into becoming a political joker party in which doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea, but on the expedite cases I honestly applaud them in doing so.

But while they keep on fighting, their members aka lawyers are the crooked lots. Intentionally and indirectly all in the same body language, they still want it to be more or less of the same practices. And one of the readily available examples is convincing the court of postponing cases when things don’t go to their ways. And of course, more delays might means more professional fees further imposed on clients per se.

And that’s what happening to me in recent years till indefinite years. I’ve been slapped with subpoena three times to attend a court hearing as a PP witness and each of the dates given which include today and tomorrow have been postponed again and again. Surely having me ranting about this out loud will definitely be waking up their fangs but hey isn’t that freedom of speech is among the agenda by their ruling body?

Looking back at yesteryears movie like The Godfather, lawyers are there for The Don but they weren’t the war consigliere but guys like Rocco Lampone is. To sum it up, his character is obedient as he’s ruthless and brutal, all in one go. Is that the same case applies to Volkswagen Scirocco? That’s what I’ve got to know this morning.

In an effort not to waste my successfully applied leaves, me and my friend went to VW showroom in Bangsar for him to have a go at Mk6 Golf 1.4 TSI which I drove earlier. We reached there when the sun is just about 40 degrees up and greeted warmly to our hearts and eyes by a out of this world hot looking with model-like body lady SA. If I wasn’t wearing my cheap looking specs, I honestly thought she’s the product we’re window shopping for.

And while we waited for her to get the keys of the Golf, we were busily looking at the cars then her then the car then her again till my eyes trajectory accidentally shifted towards the bay window which overlooked the Scirocco 1.4 TSI. And in a formula 1 split of a second, she’s standing right in front us. Cheeky enough I did asked her if that Roc can be test driven as well and she said YES!

Coming towards the Roc, visually, it’s exactly the same as the 2.0 FSI minus 17” wheels, Merlin fabric seats and of course force fed 2.0 200 hp replaced with the same 1.4 TSI engine as in the Golf. And as for the looks, the Roc isn’t as seductive as MiTo, girly as MCS, far from being beautiful, this Rocco looks like a product of mad love making between a funky Lady Gaga stylist and a frog which in turns transformed into love hate fashion thing. And when it comes to fashion, I’m first class graduate dull!

And the same theme is replicating on the inside. The same stylist has inevitably educated Wolfsburg Ingenieurs applying the same funkiness into the dashboard which origins carried over from Mk5 Golf, weird door handle and seventies rear seats. Typically enough these Ingenieurs still have a common sense in their forehead, ergonomics are still user friendly, all the buttons and levers are being placed at the right place except for the hand brake which is biased to the left and every time I think of touching it, coincidentally nearing that hot chick, a reminiscence of my wife sour face keeps popping up.

My typical habit of beginning a test drive session involves making sure the seating position and mirrors are spot on but this time around I was busily thinking how to make a socialize conversation with this hot SA with her skirt getting shorten by an inch as she seated into conti-Recaro hugging designed seat. And every time, I try to think of something, a vision pops my head of my wife armored with Uzis signaling a WW3 is coming very soon!!

So in my forward defense move, I quickly fired up the engine, slot the transmission to S and line up the Roc to the Jalan Bangsar towards Mid Valley for power and handling so called test. And just like the Golf 1.4 TSI and Polo 1.2 TSI, it hesitates to move rapidly as I floored the throttle. I wonder why this characteristic is in placed for these new VW cars as certainly Mk5 didn’t!

Power wise, I was told this Rocco has 20hp extra than standard which the same thing I heard from SA in Jalan 222 as well. But as floored and I’m sure of that, it looks as though that it pulls exactly the same like the Golf, not an inch different. So a million dollar question is where on earth that 20 horses went? A quick googling habit led me to know that this Roc has the same power figure as the Golf. Given that, I guess probably that remaining horses still got stucked in customs as they negotiating reduction from what already ridiculous 40% tax on CIF for the extra horses.

It’s still a brilliant engine nevertheless as details in the Golf review but not quite punchy and rapid as say R56 MCS. It’s hard to find the reason here but perhaps the gearing is a wee bit longer than ideal? I don’t know for sure. For bone stocker golf is no issue but for Roc, it is. And that’s a bad news for VW because MCS is the obvious competitor in this hairdresser performance car category. Thankfully enough, the price of the MCS is similar to Roc 2.0 FSI.

Having said that, the Golf drives sedately civic but this one is very sporty but obedient. Wider rear width, ACC trickery and 17” giving plenty of grip to fool around and I’ve a hunch the same applies to 2.0 variant as well. Doing 140ish on a sweeping road back towards Bangsar doesn’t upset the stability at all, it just hold on tight its frog inspired body to go through it without much fuss. The steering too has much better positive feel than the Golf but again not quite as engaging as the R56 MCS but close enough and that means still behind FD2R. And in the 1.4, you could hardly get to see the chassis aided by ACC is going to work overtime given the lacked of power.

But unlike an FD2R and MCS, it has way more comfortable ride going through rough patches. And of course you could meddle with the ACC to soften the car a bit more. This I think a real treat for hairdressers before of course devil slipped into their veins to become a complete chucklehead like yours truly.

By no means, it’s still a very good hatch with tidy handling and gives RM40k savings over 2.0 FSI and as mentioned by that hot chick, she prefers Roc over MCS :) As long as you stay away from the 2.0 FSI variant you should be fine but there’s also a devil thought of topping a meager RM10k more for an FD2R for complete chucklehead experience. Not quite a Rocco Lampone experience I’m expecting hence the reason I went to City Karting in the afternoon to burst some steams away by tapauing Italians duo claiming they topped the timesheet of 1.01 min in a 80cc kart. It wasn’t a waste annual leave it seems :)

With the colour and the looks, I can't be wrong right?

6 comments:

  1. Should put up a pic of the SA! :P

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  3. I have totally forgotten how the the car feels like.. and that prompts me for another visit to test drive with the same SA again.

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  4. Loki bro,

    That's because I was so intuitive on observing kekeke

    Imran,

    Now only I seem to recall why she demo on 'stick shift' because she might have worked her magic but we didn't realize that haha

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  5. i concur. i just came back from the showroom, and she is HOT! daaammmnnn! haha

    i'm going to give her a call for a test drive.

    - anas

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  6. Pdaus,

    *smacks forehead* I should have realised that! She seems to enjoy fiddling with the stick shifter ;)

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