Seat Ibiza FR Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Absence makes an overseas Ibiza owner’s heart grow fonder
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To find out if Seat’s small car can truly live up to its Fiesta-beating crown
After a recent holiday to Texas, spent driving a typically anodyne hire car, I was excited to regain the keys to our Seat Ibiza. Before even reaching the exit of the Autocar Towers car park, I had regained the warm glow of contentment I’ve felt whenever I’ve been driving it. If anything, being reunited with the Ibiza after a break has made me appreciate it even more.
This struck me a few days after returning from Texas, when I forced myself out of bed before dawn on a chilly Sunday morning to take part in a 10k run in Wiltshire. After breezing through the quiet streets of southwest London, I was zipping down the M3 when I realised something about the Ibiza: in terms of driving, it just does everything well. Really well.
So far, I’ve subjected the Ibiza to my stop-start commute through Greater London traffic. I’ve taken it on motorways and A-roads, used it as an airport shuttle, and packed the boot with cases and shopping. I’ve driven it on some lovely, flowing country roads too. And I’ve yet to find a situation in which it doesn’t excel.
I noted in my first report how impressed I was with the one-litre engine in our Fr-spec Ibiza, and that appreciation has grown as well. It’s remarkably at home on a motorway, never feeling stressed even after long periods at 70mph or so.
It’s also incredibly good to drive: nimble and light, yet always surefooted. It doesn’t feel as twitchy as some small cars, and is always able to respond assuredly if you ask it to display some enthusiasm.
In my view, the Ibiza scores because it does everything so well but doesn’t really shout about it. The nearest I can come to finding fault with its performance or dynamics is that the first gear pushes the car forward a little too fast to be able to let it roll along in stop-start London traffic, but that’s hardly the car’s fault.
Which made me suspicious about my Sunday morning M3 musings: is the Ibiza really that good, that grown-up, that eminently capable? Or has my thinking just been coloured after hire-car tedium?
Fortunately, executive editor Matt Burt had also signed up for the 10k and spent time driving the car when I was away. So I asked him to describe it. “Easy,” was his response. “It’s good to drive, assured on the motorway for a car of its size and everything is just where you want it to be.”
‘Easy’ might sound like damning with faint praise, but it’s really not. It’s a sign that perhaps the most impressive thing about the Ibiza’s drive is that it’s hard to think of anything it does badly.