Posted By: dante giacosa
reduced information/ heightened feedback - 16/02/2023 08:37
Well, another one of those days, where the rolling-dials of the fruit-machine-of-life lined up to show three FIAT Coupes.
Mild weather, no grit on the ground for a couple of weeks, the 146 awaiting MOT, and an early morning need for a car to get to a famous DIY shop for 07:00.
Despite the recent sub-4-degrees, my oversize battery has kept things juiced for a couple of weeks, and the VIS started in it's usually boomy way, before the revs died back after a few minutes. It always takes about 15 to 20 minutes before the engine reaches it's anemic electronic pulsing phase, where the high pitched phasing noise overtakes the mechanical signature as perceived from the front. It's a lovely sound.
Negotiating my out-of-town roundabouts and twisty rural shortcuts, I adjust my steering input to account for the longer lock-to-lock gearing of the rack, where you really have to 'navigate' the car through corners. Eventually I notice I've settled into a 'twenty to four' hold on the wheel, rather than the classic 'ten to two'. Which is very comfy.
As I'm buzzing along, I contemplate my forthcoming maintenance task of replacing the rev-counter which has recently died after 80-odd K.
I've been driving the car for a few weeks now with the duff tacho, and it leads to a different kind of driving style. -Usually on a spirited ascendancy of the gears (as the VIS ratios invite) I glance down just before the change-up, but now of course without the gauge, I have to do it by ear.
This makes for an interesting driving phenomenon in the VIS as until warm, the car is quite stiffly geared. Indeed, it takes a couple of hours before the gearing really stretches out and even at higher motorway revs you no longer have the feeling that the car is stuck in 4th.
It starts to remind me of my first car, my Uno 45 from '88, and how without even a clock to tell the time of day (or a passenger side mirror) the driver aids were somewhat reduced; and there certainly wasn't a rev counter. I never missed it at the time and remember the baffling novelty of my following car with tacho built in; my Croma i.e.
Anyway, handling the Coupe without revs feedback is no hardship, and it gives my less reason to look down; it actually subtracts a distraction from the driving experience, and I realise I'm driving by ear and am immersed in the steering more and more. It becomes quite involving, and after forty minutes with a good heat in the gears things are becoming quite fluid.
Unfortunately, I eventually arrive at work, and have to get out, quietly rewarded by my morning spin; an experience drawn more from analogue-instinct rather than technology.
Come to think of it- that voltage-gauge has never worked- I wonder how many instruments I could live without!
Mild weather, no grit on the ground for a couple of weeks, the 146 awaiting MOT, and an early morning need for a car to get to a famous DIY shop for 07:00.
Despite the recent sub-4-degrees, my oversize battery has kept things juiced for a couple of weeks, and the VIS started in it's usually boomy way, before the revs died back after a few minutes. It always takes about 15 to 20 minutes before the engine reaches it's anemic electronic pulsing phase, where the high pitched phasing noise overtakes the mechanical signature as perceived from the front. It's a lovely sound.
Negotiating my out-of-town roundabouts and twisty rural shortcuts, I adjust my steering input to account for the longer lock-to-lock gearing of the rack, where you really have to 'navigate' the car through corners. Eventually I notice I've settled into a 'twenty to four' hold on the wheel, rather than the classic 'ten to two'. Which is very comfy.
As I'm buzzing along, I contemplate my forthcoming maintenance task of replacing the rev-counter which has recently died after 80-odd K.
I've been driving the car for a few weeks now with the duff tacho, and it leads to a different kind of driving style. -Usually on a spirited ascendancy of the gears (as the VIS ratios invite) I glance down just before the change-up, but now of course without the gauge, I have to do it by ear.
This makes for an interesting driving phenomenon in the VIS as until warm, the car is quite stiffly geared. Indeed, it takes a couple of hours before the gearing really stretches out and even at higher motorway revs you no longer have the feeling that the car is stuck in 4th.
It starts to remind me of my first car, my Uno 45 from '88, and how without even a clock to tell the time of day (or a passenger side mirror) the driver aids were somewhat reduced; and there certainly wasn't a rev counter. I never missed it at the time and remember the baffling novelty of my following car with tacho built in; my Croma i.e.
Anyway, handling the Coupe without revs feedback is no hardship, and it gives my less reason to look down; it actually subtracts a distraction from the driving experience, and I realise I'm driving by ear and am immersed in the steering more and more. It becomes quite involving, and after forty minutes with a good heat in the gears things are becoming quite fluid.
Unfortunately, I eventually arrive at work, and have to get out, quietly rewarded by my morning spin; an experience drawn more from analogue-instinct rather than technology.
Come to think of it- that voltage-gauge has never worked- I wonder how many instruments I could live without!
