Impreza Vs 360 (and the Imp won!!)

Did it bo!!ox.

Hi chaps. I gather this is a Ferrari owners forum. Since I don't own one (though I'd dearly love to), I hope you'll pardon the intrusion and allow me to ramble on for a bit about an experience I had yesterday.

Went for a spin through the north Wales mountains yesterday afternoon, taking in some brilliant roads - Llanberis pass, to Betws y coed, down the A5 to the interesting bits of The Evo Triangle, Bala, back road to Ffestiniog, Oakley Arms to Beddgelert, up Nant Gwynant to Capel Currig, then A5 towards Bangor.

On the last section of the A5 through the Ogwen Valley, I spotted a red 360 up ahead in a long line of slow moving traffic. If you don't know this section of the A5, there are three or four really good overtaking spots where you can see well into the distance before you get to the narrow, twisty bits. So I thought I could easily catch up with him.

Could I hell. Couldn't even see which way he went he was going so quickly, only glimpses of something low and red getting further and further away from me confirmed that he was on the same road.

He was eventually held up by an old camper van on the outskirts of a 30 zone. Could never have caught up with him otherwise.

He caned it again peeling off the A5 at a roundabout and onto the A55 towards Anglesey. Again, I had trouble seeing which way he went. Seriously quick car and puts cars like mine well in their place.

Followed him round Bangor for a bit, in the hope that he'd pull over, giving me the chance to beg for a p-ride, but he headed out of town and back onto the 55.

I toddled off home before I lost all faith in the Imp and the 360's driver thought I was stalking him

On the off-chance that the bloke driving 64 DR yesterday afternoon reads this forum, hats off. Something tells me he was local to the n Wales area, or at least very frequent visitor.

Now, where's that lotto ticket.......

Cheers

Kev

 

I did. Don't know about him, though.

I live in north wales and have been hooning about for the past 15 years or so. Licence is spotless [frantically looks for some wood to touch]

kev

 

Mine's an end of line classic UK model, so no faffing about with restrictors. It's lightly modded to produce somewhere in the region of 250bhp and a similar torque figure. Also, the geometry's been fettled to suit north Welsh roads perfectly.

I've come up against all sorts of 'performance' cars on these roads of ours and more often than not, I've managed to get the better of them. A combination of local knowledge, experience and a properly (albeit sensibly) set-up turbo'd Japanese 4WD car, I suppose. But my experience with 64 DR on Saturday just puts everything into perspective.

David Lapworth (Prodrive guru) once said that an average driver in an Impreza could easily match a well driven Ferrari, Lambo, Porker etc, on the types of road that I usually frequent. Well, David, you're talking bo!!ocks. On the first chance I got to test my (and the car's) ability against a genuine performance icon, it became slap-in-the-face obvious that we were in completely different leagues.

I've loved Ferrari since I bought my first pack of Top Trumps all those years ago, so finding out that David Lapworth and the general population of Scoobynet are talking out of their ar$£s was hugely (and genuinely) reassuring.

Kev