A common saying in the community goes, "You can't be a true petrolhead until you've owned an Alfa". By that logic then, this... thing, qualifies one into the club.
At 28,500 Credits, the Alfa Romeo MiTo is by far the cheapest modern gateway into that supposed club, but it's not exactly cheap in the grand scheme of things: it costs over 10 grand more than the much more reliable, economical, and practical Honda Fit Hybrid, so it's clearly not meant to make logical sense. As a performance–oriented proposition however, the MiTo falls completely flat on its malignant face, costing roughly the same as a much lighter, much more powerful, and somehow, also more practical Focus ST. When judged by its numbers alone, I really can't tell you what the hell the MiTo is and who exactly it is for, and you'll have to forgive me if I judge the car by numbers alone this week, because any more than that would involve me having to permanently scar my soul by looking at the grotesque automotive accident that is the MiTo's styling.
"But XSquare," I hear you interject. "I am a selfish burden to society with no concern of how others perceive me, much less any conception of the consequences of my existence upon humanity. I therefore don't care how it looks as long as I don't have to be the one looking at it from the driver's seat. Is it good to drive?" First off, unlike a G80 M3, you can't escape the ugliness of the MiTo simply by becoming one with the ugly, because there's an obnoxious amount of fake carbon fibre lining the entire top surface of the dash. Fake carbon fibre in a product that's supposed to make you a petrolhead? Why don't you try wearing a thong made out of freshly used dishwashing cloth at the Paris Fashion show?
Secondly, the way a MiTo drives is simply tragic, accident or not. It makes at least 152HP (113kW) at 5,500rpm, but I can't give you a definite answer as to how much a MiTo is supposed to make because I think the engine in my particular car exploded at past said point while being dyno tested. How else can one explain this sheer drop in both power and torque?
Exploded engine or not, 152HP is still a lot to shove through just the front wheels of any car, let alone one wearing skinny 205/45R17 tyres. Now, ask anyone who's ever had to set up a powerful FWD car for any application, and doubtlessly they'll tell you that a lot of the magic is in the differential of these inherently understeery cars. The Alfa though, defies convention by having a completely open differential, which I can only presume is in attempt to salvage some reliability from the car by removing one more component that can go wrong. I mean, I get it. Differentials are such expensive trinkets that are so prone to going wrong. It's not like they're things that get slapped onto an entry level subcompact like a Diesel Demio costing ten grand less and be expected to work just fine. So yes, there's no risk of the differential exploding mid drive and firing electrically charged sharpnel into your spouse and kids, but the tradeoff for that is that the driving experience goes very, very wrong any time you attempt to put down any power out of a turn, with the unladen inside wheel siphoning away power from the car and the passion for life from my soul. Combine the nonexistent top end of the engine with the criminally slow shifting manual cars of GTS, and with the car's inability to put down power cleanly in low gears, you wind up with a car that asks of you only one downshift for turn 1 and one upshift on the back straight per lap at Tsukuba, with the vast majority of the time spent on said lap being lugged in 3rd. It feels almost like driving an automatic gearbox on these small tracks, which are normally where small, low powered cars shine.
And that's only the beginning of the tragedy that disguises itself as the experience of driving a MiTo.
The suspension of the car is made from overcooked, expired pasta. The homemade suspension is so soft that even on the default Comfort Soft tyres, you'll be shaving off body panels with the tyres and wheels. It's a non–issue in GTS, but it's something that you'll have to immediately fix upon receipt of the car in GT7. What, you thought 28,500 Cr. car was a lot for a lukewarm hatch? You'll need to fork over 20k more on a full custom suspension to convert your purchase from coffin to car.
Despite the MiTo being quite the porker by supermini standards, weighing in at 1,145kg (2,524lbs), the car itself stops short. But because of how fluffy the springs are, simply slamming hard on the brakes deeply upsets the balance and composure of the car, to such an extent that you have to ease off the brakes almost fully to coax some neutrality back into the car before slowly feeding in steering angle at a rate comparable to Polyphony Digital feeding us content in GT7, meaning that drivers will need to brake early for corners to allow the requisite space and time for all the aforementioned shenanigans despite the car stopping well. If you force the issue and steer the car too much too quickly before it's been allowed to regain its composure, the MiTo will simply pitch and lean so much that it makes grip from all four tyres vanish from right under you as though grip is but a busted myth. The unruly lack of control and composure along with the resultant under and oversteer is so atrocious to the point that this compact, low powered car makes Maggiore feel too narrow to drive on, which is quite the feat considering that it's a track smooth and wide enough to race LMP1 cars on for gosh's sake.
Mind you, many criticised the physics engine of GTS saying it's overly stable, and that FFs are ultra numb to drive because they never bite back. The MiTo is an FF that bites back even in GTS! To give you an idea of how much speed the Fusilli springs on the MiTo squanders away each and every corner, a heavier and less powerful Peugeot RCZ effed right off into the sunrise lap 1 around Tsukuba, pulling a Vic–like gap on everybody else, including to Vic himself! So not only does the MiTo suck when being judged by its numbers, but when the numbers are in its favour, it shows us all that it sucks so much, no numbers could possibly save it.
I said it after the first race of the day at Maggiore: the MiTo is a strong contender for being Beater of the Year. But, as the day wore on and we raced the thing more and more, I started to learn how to treat the MiTo the way it wants to be treated, to accomodate for and drive around its weaknesses and pitfalls. I learned to go at its pace instead of projecting asinine things like standard onto it. I had learned to work with the mechanicals of the car, to be "mechanically sympathetic" with the car, which @Nismonath5 tells me is a must have racing driver trait. And in that state, in that zone, that "zen", as the FH5 COTW guys might prefer, I even won a race that day! The MiTo may be a troublesome thing to wrangle around a track, but its faults can definitely be worked around, unlike some other Italian cars we've had the misfortune of testing. It was so stupidly and immensely gratifying to reel in my peers because I knew which gear to be in, when to shift the car, how to make it turn, and how to keep it composed. Every thing I found out about the car and did differently to suit it, I was duly rewarded for, and that made me feel like a kid experimenting and being praised, making me want more! I wasn't ready to admit it during race day after having just said it was a strong contender for BOTY, but I was having an immense amount of fun racing the MiTo that day.
I said it after the first race of the day at Maggiore: the MiTo is a strong contender for being Beater of the Year. But, as the day wore on and we raced the thing more and more, I started to learn how to treat the MiTo the way it wants to be treated, to accomodate for and drive around its weaknesses and pitfalls. I learned to go at its pace instead of projecting asinine things like standard onto it. I had learned to work with the mechanicals of the car, to be "mechanically sympathetic" with the car, which Nismo tells me is a must have racing driver trait. And in that state, in that zone, that "zen", as the FH5 COTW guys might prefer, I even won a race that day! The MiTo may be a troublesome thing to wrangle around a track, but its faults can definitely be worked around, unlike some other Italian cars we've had the misfortune of testing. It was so stupidly and immensely gratifying to reel in my peers because I knew which gear to be in, when to shift the car, how to make it turn, and how to keep it composed. Every thing I found out about the car and did differently to suit it, I was duly rewarded for, and that made me feel like a kid experimenting and being praised, making me want more! I wasn't ready to admit it during race day after having just said it was a strong contender for BOTY, but I was having an immense amount of fun racing the MiTo that day.
More surprising than that though, is the a very odd sense of déjà vu I felt after the high of winning the race wore off.
So to recap, it pitches, it rolls, it slides. It has two doors, no grip, a six speed stick shift, and an open differential. It's small, somewhat lightweight, it's underpowered, it needs to be in the right gear and the right revs, it demands to be treated like a dance partner instead of a tool. It costs around 25k Credits and makes no sense when judged by its numbers, and it looks best in its company's signature red. Oh, and it shares a LOT with a Fiat underneath. Why do I have a feeling I tested a car that also fits that exact description not too long ago...?
Oh, that's right, we tested the ND Mazda Roadster this January! And it was my pick! Hell, if you refer to the Roadster as a Miata, even their names sound similar!
Of course, with all the similarities between the two cars I've listed, the main difference is that the Roadster is RWD, much lighter, and less powerful. Might be a Mazda fanboy setting up the ugly Alfa to fail by racing the Roadster against the MiTo, and so I brought the Roadster to Bathurst, a track that favours outright power and top speed, to give the MiTo a sporting chance... but of course, Bathurst also happens to have one of the most treacherous, tight, and technical sections of any track in this game, and so a race here should really highlight any and all differences between the two.
And the differences were as huge as the cars were small. Come any corner that involves the brakes, and the Roadster so severely outperforms the MiTo that it could out brake and go the long way round on the outside of a corner around a MiTo. On corner exits, I've had to dodge what looked like stalled MiToes past the apexes of turns—it's that big of a difference! I've complained about how the Roadster was way too soft and dangerous a drive when we tested it, but having jumped right out of a MiTo, the Roadster felt like a racing car, and I was having a lot of trouble adapting to how much more speed the Roadster could carry through a corner, oftentimes braking and turning too early for turns. If cars had feelings and could speak, the Roadster would definitely be asking me which inexperienced vixen below my standards I've been doing lately, and why!
But of course, with such a disproportionate advantage in the corners also comes with an equally disproportionate disadvantage on the straights if the race is to be close and worth talking about. On the run up to T2, I was losing about six tenths despite having a MUCH better corner exit speed and even the MiTo's slipstream, and on Conrod Straight, almost a whole second. Safe to say I think that the MiTo would set a faster lap time at Bathurst, but can it keep in front of a rampaging Roadster at the moment the chequered flag is dropped?
https://youtu.be/nm42LsN6z14
At the end of the race, I can't help but to pose myself a rather disturbing question, one that I still as of now don't know if I really have an answer to: for all the similarities between the MiTo and Roadster, why is it that one of them is considered one of the best sports cars money can buy, and the other, an awful excuse for a car? I mean, yes, there's the obvious reliability issue I'm obviously in no position to comment on, the whole fake carbon fibre thing, and the fact that one of them is a convertible, but other than that, these two cars are just shockingly alike! Does being RWD excuse all the faults of a Roadster as being "fun", or somehow transform them into strengths? Is it because the Roadster can take corners far faster than the MiTo? Since when was outright speed what made a Roadster great? Is it because the Roadster looks a lot better? Might be.
I went into this week not knowing what the MiTo is and who it is for, trying to compare numbers like cost and lap times to that of comparable rivals. But after driving it hard among friends, I think I finally know what a MiTo is and who it is for: it is an FF hatchback version of a Mazda Roadster, and it is for petrolheads who love a challenge both on and off a track. You may not need to subject yourself to the abject misery and sheer shame of owning one to be a petrolhead, but you would definitely be one of the crazier ones if you did.
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