I totally get the appeal of a wildly cheap vehicle like the Bajaj Qute. But are buyers getting their money’s worth? The answer is a resounding no.
For starters, they aren’t getting a car. Legally, what they’re getting is a quadricycle. And it certainly feels like it. With a sequential gearshift that operates like a motorcycle’s (albeit with a foot-operated clutch instead of a hand-operated one) and a 216 cc engine, there’s a paucity of power that feels bike-like.
And the limitations continue becausethis Bajaj is allowed to go on the highway. Even if it was legally allowed, though, you’d definitely wouldn’t want to take it there. The 216 cc engine makes just 8.08 kW (10.835 hp) and 18.9 Nm of torque (13.94 lb-ft), which means a top speed of just 70 kph (43 mph).
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With most traffic whizzing by at 120 kph (75 mph) and no safety techn to speak of, it does not feel like it should be legal on the highway anyway. According to host Ciro De Siena, even if you stay on normal roads, you don’t feel that safe.
“I think the biggest concern here for me, is the rollover risk. It really does feel like it’ll topple over very easily,” he says.
That said, though, the Qute isn’t a total waste of time.
“In my experience from having driven this around Cape Town for a bit, it’s actually okay in stop-start traffic and sort of on normal roads where the speed limit is 60 [kph, 37 mph],” says De Siena. “It’s actually fine. I wasn’t expecting it to be, but it’s fast enough off the line, it’s fast enough through the gears, it gets to 60 Ks an hour fast enough.”
In fact, De Siena says he actually likes it. It does what it promises to and will get you where you need to be in a pinch.
At 75,000 rand ($5,300 USD), though, it’s not quite cheap enough to make sense. That’s cheap, but for the same amount of money you could also get yourself a reasonable second-hand VW Polo or Hyundai i10. Sure, there may be some expense involved in keeping those on the road, but they’ll also go on every road.
“I don’t think that there’s a single South African who doesn’t know what this car is right now. It’s insane how much interest there is in this car,” he admits. “But I don’t think I can recommend this as a passenger car. I really don’t.”
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