Review - Mitsubishi Colt CZC Turbo

Mitsubishi Colt CZC Turbo 

 

Our latest review is of a car built simply to appear fashionable. It’s a hard-top coupe/convertible, CC, from Mitsubishi, created using the Colt hatchback as a base, more specifically, it uses the hot versions of the Colt, meaning the CZC has the sporty bodywork from the CZT and the Naturally Aspirated and Turbo charged version of the 1.5 litre engine.

As a Baby CC, the CZC Turbo is a rather unique little car, with most being based on low-rent, lightly tuned petrol engines, so if you want a real alternative to the Mini Cooper Convertible, then this should be your first stop. It’s quite a looker too, making the Mini look over restrained and ever so slightly dull. The CZC has a very aggressively slopped bonnet, that funky body kit from the CZT which includes the front and rear bumpers and the side skirts. It also gets the gorgeous 16” alloy wheels which suit the car perfectly. Roof up or down, this cars dimensions are pretty much spot on.

The CZC Turbo is essentially the top model in the Colt range, basically a CC version of the Hot Hatch car, and although Mitsubishi have made big changes in the 2008 facelift, the CZC wasn’t part of that exercise and subsequently dropped totally from the range. Back when it was new, a top spec CZC Turbo would have set you back just over £16k which placed it on a par with the Mini Cooper Convertible, with a ‘57’ plate model, the last registration where CZC’s were available will cost a fiver short of £9,000, making it rather a cheap buy.

So what does the CZC Turbo offer you for your £9 grand? Well unlike the Cooper, which gives you a ‘MINI’ badge and a rather sexy looking soft top roof and its BMW-bred chassis and handling, the CZC offers you a Mitsubishi badge, a heavy but far more practical origami-esc hard folding roof and the 150bhp turbo charged 1.5 litre four cylinder engine.

The engine itself it from Mitsubishi’s ‘Orion’ Series, coded the ‘4G1’ series, with the engine in the CZC fully coded as the 4G15 series, which comes in both Normally Aspirated and, as here, in Turbo Charged form.

This means the Iron block, Aluminium head 1468cc, DOHC, 16 Valve, Turbo Charged, In-Line four cylinder engine is able to offer up a whopping 147bhp at 6,000rpm, about 30bhp more than the Mini Cooper Convertible. On top of this, the engine churns out 155 lb/ft at just 3,500rpm. Again this eclipses the Mini which only develops 118 lb/ft. It is because of these figures, and despite weighing 1200kg, the CZC Turbo is able to reach 62mph from standstill in just 8.1 seconds and travels on to a top speed of 126mph.

The only problem is the Turbo lag is very pronounced, so bad in fact if you find yourself below 2,500rpm and you stick your foot down; there is no performance what so ever. This means you have to pay attention to what gear you’re in. Unfortunately, the gearbox is only a five speed, which means to combat that terrible Turbo lag, you need to change gear a lot more often. Thankfully, the gear change is smooth and effective with a nice precise and purposefulness feel to it, the gear stick slots in firmly and snugly with no wobble or looseness to it. The clutch is also pleasant, not too heavy and while it obviously isn’t a sports type, it is sharp enough to be good to use.

The brakes are pretty good too, with 257mm Vented Discs at the front and 249mm solid discs at the back, the CZC Turbo has plenty of stopping power to back up its straight line speed. The ABS doesn’t cut in too early either.

However, these are all things that have been drawn from the CZT Hot Hatch, the handling of the CZC Turbo however, differs from its brother. To accommodate the roof, the CZC Turbo is slightly longer than the CZT and the weight of the roof combined the fact the whole car is less rigid means that while the CZC Turbo is a good little car, it isn’t a convertible Hot Hatch.

The roof mechanism and the structural bracings means the CZC Turbo is 130kg heavier than its brother and the lack of rigidity means the suspension system has to be supple enough to absorb all the bumps and impacts the chassis can normally absorb. However Mitsubishi forgot this and simply bolted on the CZT’s rather stiff MacPherson strut/Coil sprung, Torsion beam set-up to this car. It also means, that when you have managed to get the right gear, the car is full of understeer, lacking ultimate grip at the front tyres and is able to spin the wheels in the wet without much provocation.

It isn’t as bad as other CC cars, because the suspension is well damped and still stiff enough to allow for good cornering, but the ride is pretty poor. Bumps and pot-holes cause the ride to crash around, even with the roof up and you feel every single one of those bumps. The body roll is well controlled though and the ride isn’t bouncy like many CC cars.

The steering doesn’t help either, the Electric Power Steering is very over assisted and so is numb and unfeeling, with a very detached driving experience. All this means that despite the fact the CZT is a fantastic little bargain, the CZC Turbo doesn’t benefit from the attributes the CZT’s base brings and still has the disadvantages of a stiff ride.

Compared to the Cooper Convertible, the CZC has a much stiffer ride but the Mini has the better overall package, being less stiff but controls body shake much better.

The roof is the typical origami system, packing itself neatly into the boot. The extra length to the car is only a small addition as the car is short enough not too need an enormous roof and the wind screen was extended to further shorten the amount of folding roof that was needed. It means the CZC looks pretty good with the roof up as well as down, a failing of many CC cars we feel.

The CZC Turbo closed or open looks are also aided by the stylish bodykit, chrome exhaust tip, those funky alloy wheels. We’re not sure what we make of the enormous ‘Turbo’ motif that adorns the boot lid, which is in fact bigger than either the ‘Colt’ or ‘CZC’ badges, something that makes us laugh.

The roof noisily goes from fully closed to fully open in around 20 seconds, with the driver simply needing to stop, undo two clips and then pull the roof button that sits next to the window controls. A couple of beeps indicates the car is happy, although the system gets rather irritated if you do anything before the ending beeps.

The interior is as much of a mixed bag as the handling, which again is taken pretty much straight from the cars brother. The materials are of good quality, rather scratchy in places but you can feel that they are of very acceptable quality. The seats are however rather a disappointment. In the CZC they are half-leather sports seats, which feel quite snug when you first climb into them, with good thigh and lumbar support and the head rests are also fixed just right to offer support when you want it.

However despite this, they are in fact terrible. There’s very little luxury in them, so the whole time you’re on the move the crashy ride is sending all those bumps and undulations straight into the passenger cell and into your backside and back. It means that after an hour on the motorway, you feel tired and worn out. This is made worse by the fact the seats are uncomfortable no matter how much you adjust them, which isn’t easy as the backrest controls are difficult to get hold of comfortably.

The same story can be applied to the dash, which on first glance is a very sporty looking white background, black text and red needle 3 dial set-up which have individual surrounds. The Speedo, warning lights and trip computer LCD are all placed in the largest centre dial with the analogue fuel and temperature gauges set to the left and revs set to the right, all sounding lovely and would suit the car perfectly if it wasn’t of a horribly obvious cheap unit. The dials don’t look great and the surrounds are plastic, the chrome effect plastic tips of the surrounds look horrible.

Even though Mini use plastics for the same effect, they at least use high quality materials, a trick that Mitsubishi either ignored or couldn’t be bothered to do. Ok, Mini’s are a far more ‘premium’ and this shows in material and build quality but being a £16 grand convertible, you’d hope they might have made some effort.

The centre console is more of the same. The radio is an unbranded unit, but is a single CD-Changer with MP3 reading capability as standard and could be upgraded to include an Aux port as well, however the buttons, in particular the illuminated volume control look and feel cheap. The surrounds are rubberised to be easy to grip but just feel cheap to touch, and the main trip computer, Air-Con, which is standard on all CZC’s, has the same controls.

However the centre console is very compact without looking squashed, with the mileage, mpg figures, radio/track settings and Air-Con temperature settings all together in one LCD screen unit sitting highest, the air vents right below, with the compact CD-Player below, followed by a storage bin with a closable front and then the Air-Con controls about level with the bottom of the steering wheel. The 12V socket is the only thing set forward below this, with two recessed storage areas either side of it, in fact this compact set-up makes the front of the car feel far more open than it might

The CZC Turbo is not actually a four seat convertible hatchback but in fact a 2+2 car, and this means the seats in the back aren’t actually fit for use by grown adults. In fact there is so little legroom that the rear seats are unusable, especially if the driver/passenger are over 5½ ft tall. This is unfortunate as those half seats are fairly comfortable.

Headroom in the rear is terrible if the roof is up, but is good in the front seats, even six footers will find extra headroom, although the roof does make the car feel a little claustrophobic.

Surprisingly, the boot is pretty spacious when the roof is up, able to swallow up 450 litres without a problem and the whole space is very uniform with minimal intrusion from the wheel arches. If you use the rear half-seats as a luggage shelf, then the CZC becomes a rather practical little car.

When you drop the roof, obviously boot space is destroyed, with that 450 litre capacity cut to just 190 litres, about as small as you can get but will still carry weekend luggage for two people. It comes with a retractable screen that separates the space the roof needs from the boot space that will be left over. A common sight in CC cars but is still helpful, particularly in this car gets very upset if you do anything that interferes with the roof retraction, even just adjusting the windows can be enough.

The only problem the boot throws up is that fact you get no spare wheel at all, not even a crummy space saver. Instead you get a fairly comprehensive repair kit, which in our opinion is a better solution than useless space saver wheels, although requires a far more mechanically minded person to make good use of.

Kit wise, the CZC Turbo is very well equipped. As well as the MP3 compatible single CD-Player, ABS, power steering and Air-Con that come as standard, the CZC Turbo also gets frameless electric windows, steering wheel controls for the CD-Player, Fog-lights, leather trimmed steering wheel & gear stick, half leather seats, door open warning, dual front airbags, heated seats, remote central locking with keyless entry and immobiliser as well as those funky 16” alloy wheels all make the standard kit list, with the metallic paint options and the Aux port for the CD-Player the only extras that will require extra expense.

Even running costs are a mixed bag, with the second hand CZC Turbo’s available likely to set you back a maximum of £8,995, which will get you a 57 plate final edition model with low mileage and £6,495 netting you an 06 plate with acceptable mileage, although these good residual values only likely to hold as long as CC’s remain popular.

That big ‘Turbo’ badge should give you an idea of what fuel economy will be like; not great. However that said, the CZC Turbo will make nearly 40mpg combined, although it will easily drop into the 20’s if you’re hammering that turbo charger.

Emissions aren’t fantastic either, that performance is going to cost you, with the exhaust kicking out 168 g/km CO2 placing the CZC Turbo in Tax Band H, which means you’ll be paying £190.00 per year.

With any needed parts for repairs having to be shipped from Japan means the CZC Turbo is very expensive to insure, being rated to Insurance Group 23, it’s very expensive for what it is and this could be a major put off for plenty of potential buyers.

Conclusion

Well firstly, don’t be sold on the idea that the Mitsubishi Colt CZC Turbo is a proper convertible Hot Hatch, because it really isn’t. The chassis is isn’t rigid enough to make do anything useful with the overly stiff suspension. In fact this is a long way from being even remotely a driver’s car.

The over assisted and extremely numb steering coupled to the horrible Turbo lag make it a very difficult car to really get anything out of and the understeer ruins what fun could be extracted even when you get the right gear.

Throw in the potentially astronomical running costs and the CZC Turbo can make no sense at all.

However, compared to many of the CZC Turbo’s direct rivals, this is a great little car. That fantastic body kit and tasteful lashings of chrome mean this is a proper looker and the funky alloy wheels give it a sporty look that most CC’s can’t even touch. Ok it isn’t as good to drive as a Mini Cooper Convertible but in our opinion, this car is comparable enough to be the preferable car. It’s straight line performance offers great fun, it allows you to immensely childish at the lights while looking properly fashionable in the way only a convertible can offer.

If you truly want a convertible Hot Hatch, you need the Mini Cooper S Convertible, however that is well over £20k, meaning the CZC Turbo is pretty much the next best thing and you do have to pay for it.


Ultimately the decider will be how judgemental you feel against the interior and whether you can afford the rather high running costs. Most people will end up with a Mini Cooper Convertible so the Colt CZC Turbo is in fact a great looking and good value alternative to the Mini and far more inferior CC’s.

Mitsubishi Colt CZC Turbo
Engine: 1468cc, 16v DOHC Turbo charged In-Line 4
Power: 147bhp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 155 lb/ft @ 3,500rpm
0 - 62mph: 8.1 Seconds
Top Speed: 126mph
Fuel Economy: 39 mpg combined



MD