Here's A Start...

I got my hands on my little Abarth 595 Competizione on the 19th of July, and I have already given in to the urge to modify the wee car.


As I perused the interwebs gaining knowledge about the car and what mods were, both beneficial and aesthetically pleasing, I came across an induction kit from 500 Madness. This company is based in the US, and it was not until I emailed them about their kit that I learned the US market cars use a 1.4 Multi-Air variant of the engine, whilst the UK, EU and I believe Australia uses the 1.4 T-Jet motor.
 

Unfortunately, the 500 Madness Induction system would not fit my wee car. The reason I liked it was because it came with a pretty cool engine cover, that just finished the job off in my opinion.

500 madness Induction Kit

I noticed a lot of people were using the Forge induction kit. It looks very well finished off, a quality bit of kit, and sounds pretty aggressive, it was just the fact that I did not really want to cut my car's scuttle panel. I know it is not a big deal. It was also the fact, again in my opinion when the car's engine cover/regular air filter is removed, well the engine looks kind of bare.

 

Forge Induction Kit

So after much searching, I discovered GT Tuning's offering. I know GT Tuning have been around quite sometime, as I can recall back in the day when I had my BMW Mini's, GT Tuning offered some good bits of tuning gear.

 

GTT Cold Air Induction Kit

Anyhoo I ordered the Cold Air Induction kit online from GT Tuning's website, selecting the colour of the engine cover and hoses, and it arrived yesterday, and was waiting for me as I got in from work. 

Just awaiting the finishing touch, a cool looking Abarth badge to put on the engine cover.
 

Ordered an Abarth Badge off of eBay for the engine cover

A quick cuppa, then I was out under the bonnet of the wee Abarth. I still haven't found a name for the little car, I am sure something will come to me soon.

I followed the provided instructions, which were pretty informative and accurate. I dropped a couple of things down the front of the car by accident, a hose clamp and a washer during the removal/fitting of the air filter. It was a right pain getting them out from the under tray, but a combination of a bicycle spoke, a magnet and a one of those grabber type devices soon recovered each part that I had dropped.

Two of the most difficult parts of the process were  firstly removing the original air filter along with the engine cover. This was mainly because I had never taken one off before, and I didn't want to break or snap anything. When I read in the GTT instructions about watching you don't break the peg on the back of the manifold, I was kind of double-checking I had removed everything, before I had to give the air filter and engine cover a decent pull to get it off its rubber mounts. There are two of them, and as long as you pull up evenly, you don't put any undue force on the rear peg on the manifold.

The second part that took sometime was in installing the GTT induction kit and getting it to line up with the two notches on the engine cover and around the oil filler neck. Once my dad and I had figured this out, Oh! I forgot to mention, I had called on Ern's expertise as I don't fully trust my skills the rest of fastening up the kit was easy, that included popping the small provided filter in place on the what I think is the inlet pipe, I may be wrong, anyhoo it went on with a rubber hose and two hose pipe clamps.

I then jumped in the car, well rather manoeuvred my self in, something I have found is that it can be quite awkward getting into the car due to my prosthetic socket and the high sided Sabelt seats. I don't want to wreck the side of the seats as I get in and out due to my stupid socket.

Once in the car, I started her up and allowed her to tick over. To be honest, the car doesn't sound any different whilst sat in her, either in normal or sports mode. I am hoping the filter will just allow her to breathe more easy, as the original filter I have read is quite restrictive.

All in all happy with this first mod, it looks neat, hasn't made the car obnoxious to live with, as I now use this wee car as a daily for work, I mean I probably only do just over a hundred or so miles per week.

I like the fact the car has a valved exhaust, and you can bimble along fairly quietly, yet put the car in ASBO mode when you feel like being a bit of a hooligan, whereas Grandma my GSR Beetle is permanently in hooligan mode and on a longer drive can make your ears pop as her exhaust drones.

Anyhoo now more saving to do as I have a few more mods I would like to do to the wee Abarth.

Getting lost in Beamish

 I had no real plans for my days off, so it was a lovely surprise when my mate John Whatsapp'd me to ask did I fancy a tootle out on the bikes.

Farmer's Trail

 

I message John back telling him I couldn't be faffed with attaching my Bartlett Tendons, so I would be using my Orbea Cyclo X bike, so we would have to plan a route taking this bike and not one of my mountain bikes. John was happy with this, he just wanted to get out for a little while.


As I went to sort my gear out, I couldn't find my Race Face shower jacket. It's a handy thin bright Orange stowable pullover type affair. I then recalled I had left it in the back of Grandma my Bug, so I had a ride down to her garage, opened up the garage and grabbed my jacket from her boot. Whilst I was there, I started Grandma up, just making sure her battery wasn't flat. I have to take Grandma to the dent doctor on the 5th August as she has managed to get a dent in her... I hasten to add AGAIN! In exactly the same place. This was whilst she was sitting up in our backyard having her new brakes fitted just the other week.


Anyhoo gear sorted I had a leisurely ride up Durham Road, using my Orbea Gain on Max assist, level 3, as well... I can.

I didn't have long to wait for John, as he had been dropping his daughter off at school. I told John I had forgotten my bike pump and that on the way up, my tyres felt a little soft, so we headed back down to mine and I retrieved my pump and put some air in my tyres.

Then we were off heading for the Farmer's Trail, to No Place and then down into Beamish, passing the top end of Beamish Museum, dropping down to the Museums farm and past Beamish Golf course. We turned onto the trail opposite Beamish Hall and continued up through the woods, till we came to the road that can either take you to Sunnyside or Lamsley. We headed Left as if going to Sunnyside, however detoured along another trail and headed for Hedley Hall Woods and the car park.

John and the Woodsman

John taking pictures

 

Going through the car park, we were soon on the newly constructed pathway at Hedley Hall Woods and followed a route to where I wanted to show John the sculptures that had been installed. We then did a spot of off-roading down a trail that was rather overgrown, so much, so I ended taking us a different way to what I had planned, as I couldn't see the trail. I also fell off at one point as the undergrowth was so long, and I lost sight of the trail and went down a dodgy bit that was obscured. I wasn't going fast, so no harm done, and both John and I had a laugh about it.

Glenn

Undergrowth got a lot thicker

At one of the weird sculptures

 

Finally, I figured out where we were, we had done a large loop and actually came out at the pond we had not long ago passed at Beamish. We rode a little further, then I saw what looked like another nice off-road trail, amongst the trees. It was the sculpture trail, sure I have been on it before, so I led John up that way. It wasn't long before the trail became more difficult to see which way to go, as the undergrowth crept in, and before long we were off pushing our bikes. The tress then started to get thicker and the terrain muddier and steeper.

 

Duck

 Knackered after all this fighting with weeds and pushing

Low tree branches

John thought we were going for a ride, not a hike

I just appear to have this knack of getting us lost close to home. More pushing ensued, and we were both bad laughing as we were trying to avoid getting nettled, plodging through mud and then there were the really low tree branches and the slippery slopes both up and down. I kept getting my prosthetic foot snagged in the under growth, so the majority of the time I was tripping all over and in a constant battle to get anywhere. Eventually we came to an area after climbing a rather large bankside and John said "It's a dead end, no one has been this way". As I got to the top of the bank and surveyed the area John was right, the plants were like waist high and I couldn't see a path. Sod it I am not going all the way back I thought, so I spurred  us on, and we made our own kind of path.

Man with a spade

 

Yay! We must have been going in the right direction as we came back onto a trail at the top of yet another steep bankside, and we were back in Hedley hall Woods where we had already ridden.

Finding our way and heading back home was easy now, and that's what we did, a nice spin along the Causey Arch on the new tarmacked path, well until it ran out. Then up towards Shield Row, and we got on the C2C all the way up until the turn-off for Iceland at Stanley.

John popped into Gregg's for a couple of Gregg's dummies, mind you, he came out with a bag that looked like it would last a week. And that is another mini adventure completed.

Got Myself A New Ride...

So following on from Tango my old Smart car deciding to die on me last week, I have spent a somewhat stressful and what I thought was going to be a fairly depressing week searching for a replacement car.

A good few months ago I had toyed with the idea of thinning out my fleet of cars and getting rid of both Myrtle my old 65 VW Bug and Tango my wee Smart Car. I had been checking out the Abarth 595's. I know the little hot hatch isn't for everyone, but I really liked the styling, and the small form factor, and it would have suited my purposes ideally, a big bonus being that the little car was available in an automatic, something I need due to the whole missing leg situation.

Anyhoo I put the idea on the back burner, that was until Tango became poorly, and then the decision was kind of made up for me. And so my search began. I thought it would be easy, just locate the exact model I was after, which was the Abarth 595 180 bhp Competzione MTA, I mean come on there would be loads of them for sale right? Errrr wrong. I wanted as new a car as I could possibly afford, and when I began searching, I discovered 5 on Autotrader. Yeah! That's right 5. I contacted 3 of the dealers, all of whom gave me a courtesy call back and went on to send me various video's of their cars. Two of the dealers were way off from me and their cars were a little out of my budget. There was no movement whatsoever on the cars. Plus, I just couldn't get away with the colour of the interior of one of the cars, a kind of dirty brown.


As I write this, did you know the 2nd hand car market has seen a 32% hike in prices. It's a case of supply and demand, I guess.

Abarth 595 Competzione MTA

Mangoletsi, Knutsford Cheshire, Manchester

One of the dealers, I contacted, was Mangoletsi who have a showroom in Knutsford, Cheshire. They were also the closest to me with a car in stock and at a very good price, when compared to their competitors. I recieved a very friendly courtesy call from the manager George and he arranged for one of his salesmen Isaac to take a few videos of their car and then contact me.

 

 What I liked about Mangoletsi was that there was no pressure sales, and when I asked about the car the sales team were open and honest. I didn't want to jump straight into making a car purchase just for the sake of it, so following watching the video's Isaac had sent over I mulled over my options, admittedly there were not many, these automatic Abarths are a lot harder to get than I thought. That said, the car I had been shown looked in really good nick, so the best thing was to see it in the flesh, so to speak.

 

Abarth 595 Competzione 70th MTA

Ern checking out the wee car when we got home

 

After some consideration, when Isaac gave me a call back, I told him I would like to come down and have a butchers at his car. Isaac suggested putting down a £250 deposit. Informing me that if I was not totally happy with the car, the deposit would be returned. And so I put in a little annual leave from work and my dad and I drove down to Manchester to view the car today, which is the 19th July.

Abarth 595 Competzione 70th MTA

 

As we arrived at Mangoletsi's showroom, Isaac was just pulling the Abarth around, and he immediately came over to greet me. I guess the leg gives away who I am. It was absolutely sweltering on the forecourt, so we went indoors to the showroom, whilst Isaac grabbed some trade plates. A quick check of my driver's licence, then Isaac handed me the keys to the car, and we went for a test drive.

Little Abarth

I have sat in an Abarth before, however never driven one. It didn't take me long to get to grips with how the car felt. I pretty much knew after having a quick look around the car and the first few auto-gear shifts that it was the one for me. I love the colour it is not in your face, the car sounds awesome with its Record Monza exhaust and the engine, although only a 1.4 turbocharged 4 cylinder, is punchy. The car's seats will take a bit of getting used to, they offer great support, however as many motoring journalists have said they are pretty firm, and you also sit up high in the car. Saying that, my head doesn't touch the roof and I think it is just a case of getting used to a different car. That goes for the suspension too. It is very firm, however the car feels planted. I am quite used to a firmer ride as Grandma my VW Beetle GSR is running on coil overs and quite low.

Interior

Sabelt Seats

After the test drive, it was back into the showroom to pay for the car and I had to sort my insurance out. I must have been on the phone to Adrian Flux for well over 1 and a half hours today, probably 10 minutes of that actually speaking to someone, the rest being on hold.

Fun little car to drive

I opted to take out a further 1 year's warranty for £400, a  bit of a no-brainer really. The car is registered on a 69 plate, however it is a year 2020 car. Oh! And a very neat touch was that when I viewed the car I asked could Mangoletsi source some Abarth carpets, as when I checked out their video the car didn't appear to have any. That is one of the first things Isaac pointed out, when I went to actually look at the car. As a customer, when details like this are taken care of, well it just makes you feel like you are being looked after.


All the paper work done, Isaac went through what was provided with the car, such as the spare keys, the car's service book and manual and the locking wheel nut in the boot.


My dad and I said our farewells, thanking Isaac as he had looked after us from arriving to leaving and the car was exactly as he had described it. Fantastic service, with a very friendly team and the car I think was at a really good price.


After filling up the wee Abarth... I have yet to think of a name for her, it was off homeward-bound. As I was driving, I recieved a few test messages via my phone. Now I never use my phone whilst driving, what was really cool though was when I was stuck in traffic the Abarth's radio informed me I had some messages. I clicked on the "read" button on the 7-inch touch screen, and the lady hiding in the car's radio actually spoke my messages. Wow! Anyone from a younger generation will think so what, it's old tech. I just thought it was pretty cool, LoL.