There is genuinely a fair amount of rubbish talked about ‘grale’s 😉
I owned a Winner red ’92 Evo 1 for 6.5 years between 1997 and 2003.
Best bits:
1) Looks the muts, instantly renders anything less than an F40 as “invisible” in my experience
2) Rare. Even rarer now
3) Practical. 5 doors, decent boot, small foot print. reasonably reliable if used regularly.
4) Good ABS brakes even by modern standards, exceptional for the age of the car
5) Very good traction (4wd obviously) so quick from a standing start, however….
The Bad bits:
1) The clutch is the weak link in the drive train.. Drive it properly, and you’ll wear it out or explode it in 20k miles (mine exploded at 19k)
2) Not actually very fast. At the time sure, low 200’s of horses was reasonably fast, today, forget it, it wouldn’t see which way a modern warm hatch went, let alone a proper hot one, and something like a Golf Tdi , with its massive low end torque would be a real challange to keep up with.
3) Average handling. Yes, the rally versions, with trick suspension and critically massively stiff body shells thanks to massive roll cages and forest plating kits handled ok in a front heavy kind of way. But std road ‘grales simply do not have a stiff enough body shell to overcome that front heavy layout. Forget those dreams of 4wheel drifting around every turn. Not going to happen (yes, you can make it oversteer, but it takes a huge ‘bung’ and a lot of road to catch, and it’s momentum drift not a power drift
4) Not much grip by modern standards (215 section 16″ tyre was biggest factory tire, as today worn by a typical ‘cooking’ level fiesta or clio!!) Wheels and tyres can be fitted, but ruin the handling and result in the body shell flexing even more
I sold mine pretty much when they were worth bottom book, for iirc 14k. Today, my actual car just sold again for just over £50k.
So, in summary:
Buy to pootle around, looking good and it’s probably a very safe place to put your money. I can’t see them depreciating ever. In unloved one will be a massively expensive PITA and you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. A decent one, whilst not being brilliant to actually drive is a very good long term usable classic to own, just make sure you can stomach the inevitable large bills to keep it mint if you do use it (i did 60kmiles in mine, and other than the clutch all it needed was a (pre-emptive) turbo rebuild, but it was used a lot, pretty much a daily for at least 3 of those years. Garage queens look nice, but tend to be really un-reliable ime)
