I've been pondering this and wondered what anyone else thought.
As we know the car market has moved on a lot since the 80/90s and cars these days are far from what their great granparents were.
Bloated heavywights loaded with tech (often unnecessary).
So if you were to buy a car today, (say something of the last 4 years) what car would you say captures the essence of what we all know and love. Something small, nippy, fun and fairly basic - an enjoyable driving expereince.
In particular I'm thinking about the GTI / Hot Hatch marque rather than a poverty spec 1.3 but feel free to share your thougth sbased on your own mk2 experience. And I'm not counting the current MK7/8 Golf in the running, it might be a great modern car but I feel it's lost the raw connectoin between driver and machine.
Maybe New Mini does it for you , or Suzuki Swift. Anyway what's your thoughts.....
Think you should already know what I'm going to say!
Skoda Citigo, though would need to be something like the 'Montecarlo' the daughter has. Mechanically no different but the add ons just make it what it is.
Had almost pulled the trigger on a local Up Gti, already love the Citigo / Up / Mii trilogy but it's the pinnacle.
What with used car prices on the rise I was actually going to get the car and £1250 cash back on my trade in. Having said that you'd to remember they were looking what was the then new price of the Up for a 2 year old car.
Would've done it until I found out it'd had some bodywork done at some point.
Still intend to get one, but likely leave it until next spring... my car'll probably be worth a lot less through a combination of being older and the market hopefully regaining its sanity, but then what I'll be looking at'll be cheaper too.
My knee jerk reaction would be to get hold of a BMW Mini Cooper S like wife’s but this falls foul of the ‘bulky’ ‘hi-tec’ parameters at play. This car does everything well, in particular in Sport mode, which on board dash screen accurately identifies as ‘go-cart’ performance when activated. This car re-defines fun in my book.
2nd choice would easily be Ford Fiesta ST which my son occasionally lets me drive. Again, the modern tech installed defies most of us, particularly the electrics, but has lashings of fun performance about it which always attracts me in first place.
Most frightening small car, if I could afford one now, would be Alfa Romeo 147 GTA. Now certainly knocking on door as a modern classic ticking the small and fun boxes in its day and was certainly unhinged as Top Gear found when they put the Stig in it.
Great start guys and exactly the sort of answers I was hoping for. And good shout with the Fiesta ST. We used to have the older shape Fiesta (mk5? The nice boxey shape one, 1.6 Ghia) on an 02 the start of this shape) was a fabulous little car, my daughter now has an 08 (the facelift runnout) Zetec Blue 1.4, again an epic little hatch - not fast, but has enough in it to be great fun to drive - especially now she's had her first year in it and the black box is no longer active :-).
I imagine the series 1 ST would add just enough pep to the mix to be exactly the sort of car I'm thinking of, I guess as the models advanced it lost of bit of the essence, gained some weight but I'm sure it's still good.
Mark 7.5 Fiesta ST gets my vote, brilliant to drive and a great little car.
I'd have to agree with Tim, I'd love to get my hands on an UP GTI