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A difficult but rewarding car for the enthusiastic driver.
bertandnairobi
17 May 2011
Average rating: 4
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bertandnairobi says
RE: Media Gallery Detail
I mean 28 year old car...
13 November 2012 12:28
I´ve been looking at these in the used car websites. €1000 gets you a 1984 version with a 1600 engine and, I assume, fuel injection. I only turned back to looking at this when I discovered how out of reach a 604 is on my budget. €1200 gets you a 200,000 km 1976 automatic 604 which is unattractive because it has no rear seat belts and no Bosch fuel injection and I still have to pay import duty, waxoyld it and renew the cambelt. Carburettors are a nuisance, aren´t they? So I looked again at the Trevi, half-heartedly, really. They are on sale in Italy which is another disadvantage: it takes a long time to drive back to Denmark from Turin. Would one really want to do that in a 26 year old car? With carburettors?
13 November 2012 12:20
Someone dug out a Belgian review of the Volumex for the Wikipedia. I can report that the English-language entry on the Trevi is the best referenced and most comprehensive. Here is the quote from Wikipedia now: "The Trevi Volumex was also tested in continental Europe, with similar conclusions to those reached by British testers. A Belgian test praised the steering, while wondering where the performance went. Instead of the promised 9.6 second 0-100 km/h time, it took them 11.2 seconds. Other performance figures were very little improved over or even worse than those of a 2000IE tested earlier, in part due to longer gearing (which still failed to provide a higher top speed). Fuel consumption was as promised, until one tried to access some of the performance promised by the supercharger, when it became very high indeed.[17] Interior fittings and finish received high grades, except for the "bizarre" dash.[19] The conclusion (stated repeatedly) was that a fuel injected Trevi Turbo would have made a much better car, and that the considerably cheaper 2000IE was just as fast and had lower fuel consumption than the Volumex.[34]"
Someone dug out a Belgian review of the Volumex for the Wikipedia. I can report that the English-language entry on the Trevi is the best referenced and most comprehensive.
Here is the quote from Wikipedia now:
"The Trevi Volumex was also tested in continental Europe, with similar conclusions to those reached by British testers. A Belgian test praised the steering, while wondering where the performance went. Instead of the promised 9.6 second 0-100 km/h time, it took them 11.2 seconds. Other performance figures were very little improved over or even worse than those of a 2000IE tested earlier, in part due to longer gearing (which still failed to provide a higher top speed). Fuel consumption was as promised, until one tried to access some of the performance promised by the supercharger, when it became very high indeed.[17] Interior fittings and finish received high grades, except for the "bizarre" dash.[19] The conclusion (stated repeatedly) was that a fuel injected Trevi Turbo would have made a much better car, and that the considerably cheaper 2000IE was just as fast and had lower fuel consumption than the Volumex.[34]"
13 November 2012 10:25
So what was it like to drive? I´ve burned some more of the kids´inheritance on eBay to find out. The Sept 25, 1982 edition of Motor congratulated the car for its big-engined feel. That was the point of the mechanical forced induction method chosen for the Volumex model. The Roots-style supercharger gave the car low-end grunt unlike the top-end spikiness of a turbo, which is the method everyone else was using at the time. The VX had "effortless flexibility" but Motor liked to pull punches and so they also said that the straight-line performance had soul but not sparkle: the car could pull hard out of tight hairpins in third (on mountain roads) but then run out of steam thereafter. The rest of the car was standard Trevi, according to Motor: a gearchange that was well-spaced but clonky while the "well-balanced handling and fine grip" were first rate. The facia they called a "Star Wars" disaster. Isn´t it still a fascinating car, though?
So what was it like to drive? I´ve burned some more of the kids´inheritance on eBay to find out. The Sept 25, 1982 edition of Motor congratulated the car for its big-engined feel. That was the point of the mechanical forced induction method chosen for the Volumex model. The Roots-style supercharger gave the car low-end grunt unlike the top-end spikiness of a turbo, which is the method everyone else was using at the time. The VX had "effortless flexibility" but Motor liked to pull punches and so they also said that the straight-line performance had soul but not sparkle: the car could pull hard out of tight hairpins in third (on mountain roads) but then run out of steam thereafter. The rest of the car was standard Trevi, according to Motor: a gearchange that was well-spaced but clonky while the "well-balanced handling and fine grip" were first rate. The facia they called a "Star Wars" disaster.
Isn´t it still a fascinating car, though?
25 October 2012 00:49
It´s nice to see someone digging up this archival material. I have to say that while I rather like the Trevi for its total underdog status and odd design, the press record shows a car that was not competitive. It was charming but a BMW 320 would have excelled in more areas than this car. This doesn´t mean I´d take the BMW, but I´d only take the Trevi knowing I was doing it for subjective reasons.
29 August 2012 13:08
