Test-drive – Perodua Kelisa

As with the press preview of the Kenari, Perodua chose a racing circuit to introduce the new Kelisa to the Malaysian media. This time, however, it was the Sepang F1 Circuit. To be honest, I had reservations about this venue given that the Kelisa is a small, modestly-powered car. But then again, there’s always the problem of safety when using public roads for such purposes so the ‘one-way road’ of a racing circuit makes more sense. Besides the media, Perodua was also previewing the Kelisa to its dealers and members of its owners’ club and these people were delighted to have a chance to motor around the world-class track.

There wasn’t much of an opportunity to really test the car as only single laps were allowed per car. But it was still possible to get an impression of the new car and in a nutshell, I’d say it is a nice little car for town use and which should be more pleasant for inter-city travel than the Kancil.

Both the manual and automatic versions had the same nippy acceleration although with the manual, you can get much more brisk starts. Engine noise seemed better subdued than in other Peroduas although that ‘motorboat sound’ of a 3-cylinder engine was still apparent.

Shifting with the automatic transmission was smooth but I found that the gear positions are for ‘D4′, ‘2′ and ‘1′. Thus, if I wanted to drop out of the overdrive top gear to decelerate for a corner, it was not possible to slot into 3rd gear. Dropping down to 2 may not be a good idea if you are charging into a corner too fast.

With the manual, driving was a lot more fun and the selection of ratios appeared well spaced. In the first two gears, the revs build up very quickly and you can hit to redline easily.

As for the handling, I would say this is pretty good for a car in this class, thanks to the low centre of gravity. The car tracks through turns obediently, especially when rolling on the 60-series rubber. If you corner tidily, you will get some understeer and if your speed is on the high side, the understeer sets in progressively. On one of the cars I tested, I found that sudden lifting-off on the accelerator pedal induced a somewhat disconcerting rear-end shift. However, this seemed to be on only one car and the other one that I tried was not so ‘frisky’ – may have been due to tyre pressures.

Can’t say much about ride comfort since the track is flat but I can tell you that the interior and the driving position all have the ‘full-sized feel’ and there is no sense of being cramped, as some people would feel in a Kancil. At the back, the legroom is also adequate and I was particularly impressed with the cushions.

Small cars are always fun to drive as their modest power outputs mean that you can’t get into a lot of trouble. The well set up chassis of the Kelisa would allow an average driver to exploit more of the power and for the more experienced types, there will be much joy driving right up to the limit. This is all suggested in the advertisements you will see on TV and in the papers shortly and I’m sure that you will find them a refreshing change from the usual sort of predictable themes.

- Chips Yap -