I drove my wife's 4-door ECHO south on California Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) south from Monterey to San Luis Obispo about a month ago on our way home from our honeymoon, and I can testify that it is quite and adept car for some white-knuckle driving.
The bad part was that my wife is terribly afraid of heights, so I had to drive ultra-carefully so as not to scare the bejesus out of her. As it was she was sobbing part of the way.
That's about the cliff-iest road in California!
It took about three hours to drive 67 miles!!! Some of those turns can't be made at much more than about 35mph, in
any car. The good ol' ECHO took it all in stride.