Having done some Wikipedia research this car had at a max 138 hp and 123 lb-ft at the flywheel. This is by no means a fast car. In fact, considering the modern horsepower wars where tons of cars in the USA are breaking 150 bhp, 200 bhp, and many even clock in north of 300 bhp, this is a very slow car by comparison.
Here's the thing though, almost all the cars in Israel are city cars of the low horsepower variety. My Subaru BRZ, a Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Camaro of the four cylinder variety would be in the upper echelons of fast cars in Israel, even more so if you had a V8. But, one, Israel has fuel prices that are similar or in excess of much of Europe and two they have an enormous tax on cars, really close to 100%. My BRZ is a roughly a $60,000 car there. So most people buy cheap cars that can do everything for them. And this means a lot of compacts and subcompacts with small engines, often with 5 doors. Enough on that.
This car is all about momentum driving. Once you've gained any speed do your absolute best to keep it (except on that really twisty road down from the Golan Heights because it does not have the handling dynamics to take it at real speed).
The car handled fine. The suspension was supple enough for our trips all over the country. We went as far south as HaMakhtesh HaKatan (Small Crater) in the Negev and as far north as Tiberius and the Golan Heights. We drove a lot.
Actually, it was kind of funny. Living in the suburbs of Wilmington, DE which is really, if we're honest, is a suburb of Philadelphia we drive 7-20 miles all the time to do errands, to see friends, to run with our running group. But in Israel the next town over (even if only 10-20 kms away) is really far. Now, this might be attributed to lower car ownership and public transportation times, but when I lived there I'd regularly travel from Haifa to K'far Sava or Tel Aviv or Jerusalem by bus or train. It's just an interesting local mindset. Again I'm rambling about things not related to the car.
Handling and acceleration reminded me a lot of the 1995 (I think) Toyota Corolla I drove in high school. There is some steering feel. Your butt tells you more about what the wheels are doing than your hands on the steering wheel but all in all it turns well in that mid to late 1990s way. Still was slower than I remember the Corolla being, but maybe time or being young makes things seem faster.
Spending 2.5 weeks driving this around did an interesting thing to my muscle memory. When I got home and finally drove the BRZ again it took me about a week for me to stop thinking about just how heavy the steering in the BRZ is and just how stiff the suspension is. It was funny to drive something soft for long enough that I forgot what it was like to drive my car. Every time I drove my car for that first week back I couldn't help but comment at just how heavy the steering, clutch, and gear shifting were and how stiff the suspension was. I was highly amused. It also kind of gave me back that sense of what it was transition to the BRZ in the first place all over again.
The trunk could fit our two large luggage bags with all our clothes and so on, a back pack, and the camera bag which is great as it was all hidden when parked if we were visiting a historic site or museum.
We did go on a camping trip in the Negev (desert in the south of Israel). It handled three people and all their stuff for camping / hiking without issue and did fine with the elevation changes, though whatever gear you think you should be on an uphill you should be in one gear lower. We took it on a rather broken and at times unpaved road and it handled it quite well. It only scraped once. And without suspension mods I would not drive my BRZ on this road. But the Hyundai i20 handled it just fine.
Would I want to own one? No. But with a manual transmission it made for my favorite rental car experience. Also I believe that this was my first time driving outside the US or Canada. While the signs are supposed to all be in English, Hebrew, and Arabic there this is not always the case. So my wife and I quickly had to learn some the Israeli road signs.
Waze was a fantastic navigation application there. I used it on my cell phone with a SIM card from 012 mobile (SIM cards available from any Paz / Yellow gas station). Their data plans are cheaper for a month than a lot of the more common temporary tourist plans. Definitely worth checking into if you're going, though it may require help from an Israeli friend or family member for the ID number.
And I forgot to mention just about every rental in the parking lot at the airport had enormous amounts of dents or scratches. Bumpers had all sorts of paint missing. It was very different from the much more pristine, clean, and cared for cars you see when renting in the USA.
Alas pictures. As we were in the Negev I figured I'd go for the old Chevy "like a rock" motif or the contrast of this small city car in all those off road Jeep commercial landscapes.
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