The 16v n/a is a "purer" drive - lots more feel and much more of a mechanical involvement with the driver. Throttle response that most 20vt owners would die for. However, its not a fast car - I once had to give mine a good thrashing to beat a Prius up a hill. I reckon the Prius driver was giving it a pasting, but that's not the point - I nearly got beaten by a bloody Prius!

20VT, even standard, is a quick car. bearing in mind how old it is, the fact that its on a par with some fairly decent current-model hot-hatches is amazing. Allow the Coupe a few modifications to bring it up to date and its still the giant-killer it was when it was launched

Personally, I find the 20vt a much easier drive - high gearing and lots of torque means it can be wafted if the mood or road conditions dictate.

For the OP - the VIS is probably the best of both worlds - five-pot engine noise, decent torque and modern behaviour. Have it remapped and its probably the best everyday Coupe still available (right up to the point where you want to go quickly, in which case, forced induction is surely the only answer.... )

Has the OP ever driven a 20VT? - If you haven't, I would suggest a lengthy test drive is required

Without a doubt the na versions are more reliable, as long as service intervals, belt changes, quality oil, is respected.
Turbo put alot more stress on components and obviously heat which is also a factor.
I've seen 16v na do 160k without any major work needed.
My 16vt was on its 3rd turbo at 115k, and 1 head gasket.
20v snapped belt at 48k, then engine failed at 98, rings went.

I think all the old folk here know my point of view; I've owned 16NA and 20VT, driven all, including Joe's 2.4VIS and 'enthusiastically' modified 20VTs, and I have a 20VT engine in the kit car.

But the one I'm spending the money on is the 16NA for exactly the reasons pjdm quoted: it's the best car to drive. For an autobahn, 20VT - it's a GT - but for a drive across Scotland, the 16NA every time.

Your mileage may of course vary...

There is no arguing with experience.

Its 16v NA that's the best hehee.

And im pretty sure I can get a 16 or 20v na across the peak district faster than I can get my old turbo coupes.

And no, I've never driven a turbo, apart from a mis-firing Mg Maestro turbo, which felt good when it wasn't being sick. Does this count? Should I, or will it just open the door to vast expense on a new project car and in turn lead to an unhappy wife n kids?

Some important questions to answer;
1: What sort of roads do you drive on most?
2: How often do you like to 'give it the beans' and overtake?

A Turbo or N/A will both need good maintenance/expenditure to make them reliable so it really comes down to what kind of power delivery you prefer and what sort of roads you use most.

I think if you test drove a 20vt you would find the boost quite addictive.

Problem is point and shoot is about all you can do with most journeys and traffic volume.
You can only do 'pure driving' as you put it on a track these days.

My perfect road, consists of me and my car and knowone else.
Oh lots of hills and corners.

its way to risky overtaking on main roads these days.

its way to risky overtaking on main roads these days.

Yeah I didn't give the track layout much consideration. Question only intended as a talking point, nothing more. Think we can all agree driver ability is key difference, albeit still not the point.

@pj - Opening line there was just a quip so hope not taken the wrong way.

would love to see a good 16v na and a vt going at it round a short course, and then a long course track.
Id let my car be used for that I recon.
Id bet 16v would take short course and vt long.

(The gent has re-listed the turbo at the same price).
I have driven a modern turbo diesel - a mates Leon 170. Left me cold TBH - dull noise,inability to rev past 5k and a sensation of speed only indicated by the speedo.
Roads I like to drive - country with bends inter-linked by point and shoot straights. I like engine, induction and exhaust noise. Stock Alfa Sprint 1.7 on carbs being my best car for that so far.
Do I like speed? Hell yeah. Post 4k rpm in 5th the road warps and fully engages my concentration, unlike 50mph in traffic. Only on empty private roads you understand, like Wales I am enjoying all of the contributions. Thanks

Dude you so need a 20vt!
I'm not disrespecting N/A cars as all coupes are fantastic, but the noise and acceleration of the turbo is addictive.

My mapped VIS will quite happily overtake spiritedly in 3rd thanks.



For motorways, the higher ratios and torque of the turbo make much more sense.

No car has soul in straight lines.

A re-map sounds like my way forward. Can you indulge me and describe the before and after re-map driving characteristics of your car? Also, which exhaust did you plump for? I'm on a budget so the sensible me says 'stick with the car you have sorted out' rather than shell out on another project , which would be a 20vt. Yep, my Vis shifts on in 3rd, does this now continue into fourth abit? Thanks

You need a passenger ride in mine... 0-100 in around 9 seconds and 150 eight seconds later (and 175 another eight seconds after that) is plenty of soul (although I hear your point, hence why mine goes round corners fairly well too....)

Has anyone offered the original poster a go in their turbo?!

Some borderline ludicrous posts pj - well done!

Owned a 16V N/A for several years. Can say the same of my 328bhp turbo plus which I still own now.
Off boost the turbo pulls like any other sedate car and is perfectly driveable in city traffic. The N/A always felt woefully underpowered. An observation made the first time I drove it, before I'd ever been in a turbo coupe.

Reliability at least in part comes down to care and maintenance. My plus has never left me stranded anywhere or even failed to start. It's very well looked after and yet most significant costs have been through choice rather than necessity.

I recall the 16V N/A had better steering feel but let's keep a sensible perspective on this, that's the only thing it did better and even then the difference is somewhere between mild and moderate, certainly not extreme. Driving my N/A hard gave the sense of total vehicular domination, great fun but easy to find *my* limit. Maybe takes a bit more time to get the same confidence pushing extremely hard in a 20VT but exactly as Nigel says that comes with high speed thrills aplenty. The 'point and squirt' mentioned here stems from the need to come back down from silly speeds the turbo piles on in seconds, but having that extra power doesn't preclude carrying speed round a bend or applying throttle in a controlled manner.

IMO the 20VT (especially when modified) is more likely to have talents that exceed those of its driver. On that basis I submit that it's more rewarding for a 'spirited' drive.

As a lot of you do Spa every year, are there any comparative lap times available?

Relax, Phil... it's only a car!

Life would be boring if we all liked the same things.

I like my 20V. I have had it from new and know that it still performs very much in the same ballpark as when it was new. It has only done 50k sympathetic miles and is still pretty tight. Performance-wise a good one should still be in modern warm-hatch territory, so I would not describe them as underpowered - just not really that fast.

Comparing it with the performance of the model with 50% more power is futile. A standard 20VT is in another league. the 20V takes about 10 seconds longer to get to 100 mph than the 20VT - huge difference. But that does not make the non-blown car a bad car. If it suits, just enjoy it. I like the feel of the car and enjoy driving it. That is why I still have it. Really fast cars are over the speed limit before you know what has happened and driving them quickly may be a bit too easy so we take more pleasure in being able to drive a slower car fast. It is more challenging. It does not make the slower car a better car. A fast car makes picking of slower moving traffic easy but 90% of the time, that is what you need, so having that performance in hand is no bad thing.

The other thing to put into perspective is that coupes don't have that much grip compared to modern machinery. Limits are lower and they need a more sensitive hand to drive fast, which adds to the fun when you are up for it but is a bit frustrating when you would rather the car would just do as it was told!

the na is a better all round car, its the original coupe, its the king, the rest are just pretenders. Hehehee I love a good debate especially when im right.

your just so wrong but you only hear your own voice !

watch out when it starts to tell you to start killing people

Point totaly missed sorry.
If this thread was about speed I would get it, its not.

oh dear

Well actually, the thread started exactly with an interest in speed. THe OP asked what he was missing on the acceleration front. It has morphed into a handling/character discussion, and to be perfectly honest, the Coupe is no benchmark in the handling discipline! And we are more than likely comparing cars far from their original condition that any comparison is very fuzzy.

You are trying to tell everybody that the 16V provides a better driving experience. This is very subjective. For you OK, for me, I don't know because I have never driven one and it is too long ago that I drove a 20VT. Acceleration is a part of the enjoyment of driving so the lack of it is hard to make up with refined handing, and on that front, the coupe is no Porsche or Lotus, etc.

No car has soul in straight lines.

the na is a better all round car, its the original coupe, its the king, the rest are just pretenders. Hehehee I love a good debate especially when I'm utterly wrong.

NA is a better driving experience for me in MY educated, experienced opinion for me as a driver.

I own a 20V and have done for the last 18 years, from new. I was one of those that paid good money for a FIAT Coupe. I like it. I have no problem with that.

I drove a 20VT 18 years ago. I would be stupid to say I can really remember the fine details and differences. The performance difference was huge though and I still remember the ease with which it could join an Autobahn and effortlessly slot into de-restricted traffic. I could have bought either but I did not want the extra complexity of the turbos. I have never driven a 16V or a 16VT. I don't see why you are insulted by my memory being only average.

I asked the question about differences out of interest. If I knew the difference for myself, I would have been a pointless question.

I know nothing about the Nissan Prius. I didn't even know they existed, so I doubt I can contribute much on that front, unless I make it up, which is not my style.

You are actually more likely to find me at the other end of the spectrum on the Jaguar XKR forum, if it is of any relevance to FIAT Coupes.

Enjoy your driving

Well I would say your wrong, im a professional driver, police trained, also track experienced and control trained at the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne London.
If you had read this thread properly rather than just jumping in with an opinion you would have known.
Its ok I can forgive your ignorance.
You are forgiven.
There are 3 types of driver.
1 - trained
2 - untrained
3 - thinks there trained
Which are you

As far as I'm concerned, the only advantage of a 16v N/A is that when you drop a tool in the engine bay, it'll always reach the ground....

You would say that. LOL
I have read this thread properly thanks. I'm am not ignorant either but if that's your opinion you are entitled to it.
Seeing as you asked I am also a trained driver, though not by the police. Not that it makes any difference!
Just because you have been trained by the police doesn't mean you are a better driver than anybody else on here, so please stop banging on about it.

Well, that *used* to be the case, but then I restored the undertray...

Gentlemen, noting that humour is not always apparent in written words without facial context, might I request please that we try and keep the insults and the winding up down a little?

The McDonald's driving school doesn't count.

Well, that *used* to be the case, but then I restored the undertray...

Gentlemen, noting that humour is not always apparent in written words without facial context, might I request please that we try and keep the insults and the winding up down a little?

Topical aside, I dropped a cam cover bolt into the bowels of my 20vt engine bay once, then because my hands were so cold, dropped my telescopic magnet tool down there too...

^^ Agreed.
I would say the op should test drive a turbo and then decide whether that is more suited to him than his current N/A.

Hahahaaaa no I said were I did my training, but you said not to bang on, so I mentioned yours
Mines a big mac meal plzz.
The plastic thing under my coupe is for catching nuts bolts coolant and oil isn't it?
Don't the 16v have them for catching debris when the engine fails

I'd love to have a blast in a 20vt. No-one in my area has one that I know of, and even then if I owned one I'd be reluctant to lend it to another to test drive.
My mind is made up, with all of your help..........
No it's not (I can't write I'll stick with the n/a).
I'll keep it until I can get a test drive in a vt. Then I'll decide.

No-one in your area? Countrycruising is just down the road at Upton-upon-Severn; I'll be there this weekend putting a bit more of my 16NA back together...

I can has cheezeburger?

No-one in your area? Countrycruising is just down the road at Upton-upon-Severn; I'll be there this weekend putting a bit more of my 16NA back together...

I can has cheezeburger?

I once bought a firework that reminded me of a coupe turbo.
It was a big red rocket.
It took of with an awsome whooooooooosh, accelerated up in a straight line it looked beautifully.
THEN IT WENT BANG!!!!
And was knowmore....

In the interests of sanity - why I picked my 16NA over the VT:

I bought it new in 95; there were only the 16V versions available at the time - NA and T.

- the power differential was only 40bhp (not the 80bhp extra of the 20vt)
- top speed differential was 10mph and largely academic
- I'd just sold a turbo car
- the turbo lag was horrible
- the NA handled better

I drove them both over a week umming and ahhing and eventually settled on the NA. I've never regretted, and while I had both a 16NA and the 20VT for a couple of years - and they are like chalk and cheese - it was the 20VT that I sold.

Which will tell you which is the better car *for me*.

And didn't that review in Autoitalia state 'the 16NA is the perfect car'?

And didn't that review in Autoitalia state 'the 16NA is the perfect car'?

Finaly a sane voice amongst fools heheheee.

And that comment ladies and gents is why this particular poster is winning friends by the bucket load for his recent contibutions on here by the hour!

And didn't that review in Autoitalia state 'the 16NA is the perfect car'?

thats because he hasn't driven mine

Don't believe everything you read in the press

Good Reply shame humour is hard to convey in my comments.
I wasn't insulted merely an attempt at humour lol.
I don't think there is a serious bone in me.
However, i love winding people up, and im good at it.

You don't own a Toyota Soarer by any chance? I have heard they are even better than 16v Coupes

You don't own a Toyota Soarer by any chance? I have heard they are even better than 16v Coupes