Sapporo Saroma:
Alrighty here we go, the Saporro Saroma, first impressions is a rather tame looking coupe-suv considering the spec sheet we looked at beforehand, but more on that later. The design is quite safe I would say, no real risks taken, and to be honest - not much in the way of having sporty elements besides the sloping roofline. Front & rear fascia’s are not too bad but not really in your face and bold like I was hoping to find here, it does have a decent amount of detail though - just needs a bit more zest I think.
Now, onto the numbers - 750hp & 1000Nm, bonkers amount of numbers that you would never realistically need, perfect. Powering this beast is a 4.4L TT V8 which itself is a pretty healthy unit, BUT, the bits & pieces around it do let it down quite a bit. The test drive concluded that it’s not the most drivable thing out there, quite the opposite actually - which was not helped with the reliability issues we experienced on this short drive somehow. It’s a quick car but I would not feel comfortable in doing any speeding in this one, nor would I really feel comfortable buying it in the first place, most of the areas we tested were quite below average and was not satisfied with how things went throughout the testing, pass.
Most notably, I like the contrast between the blacked-out roof and the neon green paint, it hides some of the visual mass and proportion-wise, it looks great, even with 22" wheels (sized nicely). I wish there was more visual mass removed from the bottom of the car, perhaps a small black trim at the bottom could do a lot to the design and visually “frame” it properly. Also, I wish that was a more cohesive design language, mainly the relation of the front fascia design with the rear design, as the tail lights feel very different and has a different “vibe” than the front. The sides also seem a bit too bare perhaps.
Carcharhini Stratos GT:
Right now before any testing even started for the Carcharhini Stratos GT, one thing immediately jumped out at us, the borderline cartoonish proportions of this thing, it is so short and stubby if you were to only ever see this thing on photos you would think it has a wheelbase of around 2.4m, which is quite sad considering that the design itself is not really too bad and has a decent amount of detailing throughout, not personally a fan of the nose though - some bits feel like they do not belong on there.
Now besides all that, our real worry was the drive since we saw a few numbers beforehand, and well, the proportions are not the only thing thats smaller than what it should be. A whopping 460hp from a 4.3L N/A V8? there are hatchbacks that nearly have this amount of power with half the engine, really not sure what the engineers were thinking on that front, but the test drive will reveal how that affects the experience - As expected it surprisingly (not) was not the best, it was the slowest car we had to test today, nearly a 5sec 0-100 time is not cool when again, hatchbacks can achieve this too. Besides the performance, the handling and sporty feel are also very much sub-par and not what we were looking for, it’s not even the cheapest car here and that does not help its case at all, pass.
This design has weird proportions firstly - although the height is great and the wheels seem to nicely ‘fit’ the size of the overall body, the greenhouse is comically squished and feels so short, almost like there’s no room inside for its occupants and a severe lack of rear headroom (or legroom!). This is really bad considering it’s a 2.8m wheelbase lol. Perhaps a lot of effort has been made to maintain a long bonnet and a sloped almost sedan-like rear roofline, but… I think you can do a coupe SUV on a 2.8m wheelbase that is more practical looking than this. The build quality itself is not bad at all, there’s effort in detailing throughout, and the overall angular vibes are maintained nicely. Overall, the styling works well but wow that greenhouse is just comical, sorry.
Rhania Monstro YE:
(Pause) The Rhania Monstro YE… Yikes. Now we were not sure how this specific car ended up here since we saw leaks of a much nicer looking alternative, not sure what happened to that one, probably lost the sketches and couldnt access it. But with the one we have here today we almost could not wait to get inside that car so we could stop looking at the outside, there were so many design related questions that we almost didn’t want answers for, like why does it have Nascar style blast-pipe exhausts on the side? or what age were the designers? but anywho…
We went for a drive. The Monstro does feature a 3.8L TT V6 with 610hp which is a healthy number and does do a decent job of punting the car around with ease, it was quite a mediocre experience with not much to take away besides the fact that it really was not comfortable at all, everything else felt very uninspiring and not well thought out, and the fact that it almost maxed out our budget.. yeah it was an easy no from me.
This design doesn’t look cohesive or flattering at all. I think an attempt has been made to go after that large wheel and small greenhouse concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The tyre sidewalls are massive, perhaps chasing a comfortable ride, but it sacrifices a lot of visual appeal - does not scream super or expensive at all. The front looks extremely awkward and does the strakes design concept is not reflected in the rear fascia at all. Looking at it from different angles gives distinctly different vibes, and honestly this looks economy car rather than super SUV.
Hexe Emma GTS:
Now the Hexe Emma GTS does seem quite enticing on paper, big headlining numbers - 886hp and 1120Nm all from a 4L TT V8, a 3.21sec 0-100 time and a blistering 10.66 on the 1/4 mile - wow, we really needed to investigate this one further. The investigation turned out to be somewhat disappointing unfortunately, the visuals just did not back up any of the performance numbers, no real design features at all, no creases, no sporty lips, no nothing besides an almost sad looking face and a rear end which has potential (no potential for the rear parking sensors though, they are pointing to the sky and also very high up).
Going onto the test drive the Hexe was not the worst thing to drive in to be fair, it felt quite sporty and was somewhat drivable considering the amount of power it has, but DAMN was it uncomfortable to be in, for sure the least comfortable i’ve been the whole day - is the 5K savings on our budget worth it? I don’t quite think it is unfortunately.
Another entry with slightly comical proportions, but this one seems a little worse in terms of build quality. The wheels look absolutely massive and the roofline itself looks a bit wonky. The color doesn’t really do it any favors either, and unfortunately the front fascia kind of looks a bit awkward honestly. The rear end meanwhile has a massive blacked out bottom section with not much going on, and the tail lights fit nicely with the body but doesn’t really stand out. This car tried to go for quite extreme proportions that honestly does not work at all and the rest is just quite a bit of a letdown, with a very awkward vibe going on throughout that seems to me quite confused.
Allure Escapade V.2
On to the next one which is the Allure Escapade V2, now straight off the bat it was clear that this one was not really going to be for us.. It looks way more designed to be on the luxury side and not the sporty & wild side, no part of this alludes me to think that it should be fast, expensive maybe, but not sporty. I was also not quite sure of the build quality since there was a piece of rubber seal or something hanging out from the door gaps on the side, and besides work being put into design there was not really much thought put into having good detailing, no sensors of any kind and no front fender gaps next to the door.
Not sure if we were given a pre-production model but it felt quite unfinished. The test drive did not reveal much in the way of greatness, everything felt quite average across the board, with the exception of it’s 620hp 4.4L V8 punting it from 0-100 in a impressive 2.93 seconds and a sub 11 second 1/4 mile time - but again unfortunately the looks do not back up the sporty numbers you get from it.
Another entry with 24" wheels, perhaps to equalize the size and sheer visual mass of the body itself. This is on a 3.1m wheelbase, but the overall proportions is good. I like the floating roof design, but the light blue paint doesn’t scream muscularity or aggressiveness or road presence, much unlike its size. It’s a nice and simple shape overall, reminiscent of a real-life car (not necessarily a bad thing), but perhaps unambitious in its overall shaping - it’s more of a simple and sleek vibe rather than angry road monster. The front fascia is fine, it’s quite complex, but also not really linking well with the rear, so you’ve got different vibes. The attention to detail and build quality could be better too.
Revera RX Supersport
Our next option does look a bit more promising than the previous ones, very very good performance numbers, and a design that does’nt put you to sleep? Lets get into it. Looking at the Revera RX Supersport you can sense that it means business with its aggressive design, wings and big diffuser - i do quite like the nose of this one but the rear feels quite lackluster in comparison, but not the worst we’ve seen, no real complaints further.
Now where this one really shines is in the performance category, a whopping 800hp from a 4.2L TT V8 redlining all the way up at 8000rpm, not the highest we’ve had here but the Revera does have a secret weapon, it’s lack of (relative) weight - only slightly above 1900kg is very light for this class of car and you can tell by how damn fast it goes in a straight line, 2.85sec to 100 and 10.43 on a 1/4 mile is no joke - this is even more amazing when you consider that its 20K UNDER budget, insane, however the lack of quality does show - the car just did not feel very prestigious at all, reliability issues where present and was super uncomfortable - we also heard that it doesn’t score very highly on the EURO NCAP safety tests, all this puts it safely out of contention for purchase - saving all that money ands up costing you a lot.
Even though it uses a 2.9m wheelbase, this leans towards the more ambitious side of design styling to me. Even with ‘only’ 22" rims, the wheels are nicely proportionally sized to the rest of the body - even with a forward-cab greenhouse, it still looks sporty and nice, the vibes it gives off (to me) is like an oversized hatchback - although the body is large, it visually looks small and sporty, nice. The front design is nice, I like how the side vents are done, and I appreciate the effort of trying to replicate the look in the rear too. Overall it’s quite nice and I appreciate the ambitious attempt but perhaps more care could be made in smoothening everything out or perhaps going next level on the depth of detail.
Mills Grandala SP
Righto the, onto the next on which is the Mills Grandala SP, which honestly is not a bad looker at all, very good first impressions, decent front & rear fascia’s and a good uniform design throughout - nice simple luxury-esque looks that certainly has some sporty edges to it, however it could’ve gone a little further down that road - speaking of going down roads though, this thing is quite low, it’s bordering quite close on being a sporty wagon, which is not the biggest problem, but it would be slightly more work getting in & out of it and would make me slightly scared if we were to eventually end up on a lovely British dirt road.
Moving onto the test drive the Grandala behaved itself quite nicely overall, nothing too exceptional but nothing really bad either, truly a middle of the pack experience however we did notice that we were getting the best fuel economy along the drive with the 4L TT V8 being happy to cruise along the motorway. It’s no slouch either with a 0-100 in just above 3.1sec and and a 1/4 mile just above 11.1sec, overall a decent car, perfectly average.
First impression is that this looks more like a tall wagon for me - it’s pretty long and low to the ground, which isn’t bad at all, but lacks a bit of the road presence we’re looking for as a super SUV at this price. It’s a relatively simple build, clean and nice, but I wish more time and effort could be put into it I think. With 23" wheels, it fills the wheel housings nicely, but I feel like it’s setup a bit too low to the ground - perhaps chasing a sporty look, but lacks the excitement or ambition as some of the others. Overall, not much else to say other than it’s not a bad looking build, but just… okay and doesn’t stand out.
