SOTW: Nissan Almera GTI

After last week's excess, a dependable Jap hot hatch is the order of this week's Shed

After the moneypit mayhem of last week’s Disco V8, it’s time for some fiscal relief in the form of a nippy little Shedlet that should be light on both its feet and your wallet: this Nissan Almera GTI.

Pretty it ain't, but it will should forever

For many, the word ‘Nissan’ conjures up all the whimsy and romance of a cold night out in Bletchley, until you think a little deeper about some of the cars that have carried the badge – 200SX, the driftmeister’s weapon of choice; 350/370Z, motoring’s equivalent of a rugby hooker; and of course the unnatural force that is the GT-R. Then you might start to feel a bit guilty for stereotyping the brand. Until someone says ‘Almera’, at which point your guilt evaporates.

The standard Almera will never be put on display in any automotive hall of fame, or even in the warehouse of reserves round the back. Exciting it is not. The one thing it does have in bucketloads though is perseverance. Anyone who has ever tried to kill a Honda C90 step-through will know that nothing short of a thermic lance or medium-sized lump of C4 will stop a healthy example from running. In terms of mechanical doggedness the Almera is a kind of four-wheeled C90.

The GTI version takes this uninspiring but worthy characteristic and attempts to ramp it up into something approaching a state of grudging admiration in the owner. This one here is a first-gen N15 GTI, certainly the best-looking of the three iterations, and built one year after the model was launched in the UK on the back of some of the funniest car ads ever aired on British telly (the Sweeney and Professionals spoofs).

Countless miles left in this GTI's life

The two-litre four could never be described as a thrilling unit. Only rev it out to its 7000rpm redline if you actually like the distressing wheeze a donkey makes when it’s got TB. But don’t begrudge the motor’s ability to move you up the road at a respectable rate, or its resilience. It will take plenty of abuse. Apart from timing chains that get slappy with age and a few early problems with crank/cam sensors (addressed by a recall) this is a great example of fill-and-forget motoring.

Back in the day, Shed ran an Almera GTI on long-term test. There were no issues with it whatsoever. In fact the total lack of incident turned into a problem a few months down the line when he ran out of interesting things to say about it.

To juice things up a bit, Shed took it to Autocar’s famous ‘baws-oot’ handling bend at the Chobham test track, with the intention of getting some lairy shots to enliven the next report. Unfortunately he forgot that the scene in the Professionals’ ad where the GTI makes a classic rear-wheel drive start was pure artistic licence. After enduring 15 minutes of increasingly cackhanded attempts to get the back end out, the poor thing eventually understeered off into the side of an MOD Landie that a Chobham operative had parked at the one point on the otherwise entirely deserted premises where an out-of-control car might go off. The Chobsworth moved his Landie immediately afterwards, having proven the point that he could park wherever the hell he liked. There was no obvious damage to his machine, but the front quarter of the Almera was stoved in.

Motion blur due to serious G-force. Maybe.

Apart from the feeling of flimsiness engendered by this incident, which never really went away, the only thing Shed didn’t like about his GTI was the rear strut brace which neatly bisected (longitudinally and laterally) what would otherwise have been a decent cargo space. Having said that, he can’t remember much that he did like about the car either. But for the hard-pressed Shedman who is more interested in low costs than high excitement, the Almera GTI is a sensible choice.

We know this car’s been in the PH Classifieds for a little while. It was an also-ran for last week’s Shed. If you can get 12 months’ tax included in the asking price, that £650 could be the last money you’ll spend on it till next year. A very Shedly prospect indeed.

Here’s the ad:

MOT UNTIL JANUARY 2014
TAX UNTIL END OF MONTH

ALL PREVIOUS MOT'S
SERVICE HISTORY UPTO 60,000
LOGBOOK

SONY CD PLAYER
6X9 KENWOOD SPEAKERS
WOLFRACE BLACK EDITION WHEELS WITH GOOD LOW PROFILE TYRES

DRIVES AND FEELS LIKE NEW
NO KNOCKS AND BANGS
CLUTCH, GEARBOX AND ENGINE ARE MINT NO RATTLES OR GEAR CRUNCHING

INTERIOR IS MINT NO WEAR, RIPS, HOLES OR BURNS

THE BODY NEEDS NOT TOO MUCH TO MAKE MINT ARCHES HAVE SHOWN SOME SMALL BUBBLES BUT NOTHING MAJOR

£650 ono

PLEASE NO TIME WASTERS THANK YOU!!!

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