The series of bends are a slow and sibilant S dropped like stocks and shares in a slump upon the sleek and somnambulant scene ahead of me. I am coming at them as fast as a crazed cricketer boldly bowling for his second successive century. Too fast? For a brief but brazen moment that might seem to be the case. But in truth I had nothing to fear for beneath me I have a chassis that grips like a wrestling snake in the midst of seizure, a chassis defined and yet all at once liberated by the two letters that stand proud on the rump of the body that sits four square atop it. K and A.
Yes, my steed for this all out assault on the most twisted sister of a blacktop the East Midlands can supply is Ford’s new baby but there is nothing childish about the way it sucks up that tight ribbon of road like a hungry Italian at a spaghetti festival.
You’ll notice I said Italian for a reason because this new pocket sized funster is neither literally nor metaphorically a Blue Oval. The hardware it packs under its pert and preened posing pouch of a shell comes from the land of pasta and Pisa, specifically the cute-as-a-kitten-crawling-on-Cameron-Diaz Fiat 500. Yet Ford’s suspension supremos have cut through the carbonara, tweaking and tuning so that this new bambino pedals like a pro.
The steering is as quick witted as Clive Anderson on QI, the gearshift as slick as Bryan Ferry in an oil spill, the chassis as classy as mid-era Shirley Bassey. Was I going too fast into those bends? Not in this baby, baby. Turn in, feels the forces build like a wave of lateral gravity, let it key into the road like a tarmac crazed locksmith. I lift off the throttle mid-way through the second arc, feeling the back end make like John Sergeant and step out of line. Instantly and instinctively I gave it a dab of oppo and I was away.
The Ford Ka 1.3 TDCi Zetec is a bitch. And I spanked it.
Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-at-large for DAB OF OPPO magazine
