 Wow, is the handling great! Tight, 
zippy -- just crisp, clean fun. Too bad 
they couldn't have given it more 
horses. I test drove a Protege LX a few 
years ago, and it was woefully 
underpowered; the much bigger engine in 
this ES seemed as if it would overcome 
that hurdle. Sad to say, it needs to go 
into 4th gear well before 40 mph, and 
into 5th in the high 40s. It strains a 
bit to maintain 65-70 on highways where 
that is the dominant speed of traffic 
flow. Give this car a 6th gear and 
you'd have something truly great! ;-)
 My only other concern is the dashboard 
illumination. The red glow works great 
in the dark, but at dusk the 
instruments are hard to read.