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When I got the car, the mileage was 94 423; now it's 50k more (and a little bit more than that to be exact). This Friday, I dug the F out of a snow drift and juiced the battery up with a jolt from the Sapporo - as it was time to attend the #gear.fi Ice Track Extravaganza on Saturday. Which, due to global warming, got cancelled (the only overly warm weekend of the winter just had to be this past weekend, and there was too much water on the ice we were supposed to hoon on). Anyways, despite getting the cancelling SMS halfway through my journey to Kymi Valley, southeast Finland, I wasn't complaining. After three weeks behind the wheel of the relatively enormous Sapporo, the 323F felt light, sharp, direct and hugely enjoyable. And last night, starting off at 9:30PM, I had five-ish hours to drive back west.
I just can't tell you how much I like the gearbox. The movements are short and slick, and imho it feels better to use than any BMW's I've driven. I love the steering feel, too, despite the car running on winter rubber. So, what's there left to hate? Not much; the Sapporo has taught me how useable cruise control is, and that the 323F could use a bit thicker sound proofing. And after 2000km in the Mitsu, switching on the full beams and finding the inside door handle were challenging. But creature comforts like cruise are useless in the F, to be honest - it's all about being light and no-frills. Since I couldn't just select cruise and let the car sit at a comfortable 2500rpm, it was the natural course of action to simply over-drive it. I had all the speed camera locations for the 500 km drive stored in my head, I had a Thomas Dolby compilation in the CD player. So, I drove camera-to-camera, only stopping for a burger and a coffee halfway through at midnight. If you don't count truck rigs, I probably saw three cars after passing Tampere - and despite giving the F stick, it still did 7l/100km (33,6MPG) on 98E5.
So, both of the cars have their uses. The Sapporo does long-distance well, and there are times when I like to be cocooned in blue velour and chrome inserts - and do not care much for darty, jittery sportiness. But give me a slippery, deserted road, a clear sky and a desire to get somewhere quicker than I need to - and I'll take the 323F every time.