Seat Mii Review

My son turns 17 this year and in the UK this means he's eligible to drive - once he passes the test. In anticipation of the big event I've been taking him to Mercedes World at Brooklands for under 17s driving lessons. 

He started at age 14 in a B 180 CDI and has since driven an A 200, ML 350 and, most recently, A45 AMG. All these lessons took place within the confines of Mercedes' own tracks at Brooklands. The ML drive was at their off road circuit and the A 45 AMG was at their fastest track and on the drag strip.

So I'm the kind of parent who wants their child to be ready to go when it comes to driving. Fact is I wanted him to be able to drive a car before he turned 17 so that during his lessons on the road he'll be able to focus on road craft and hazards. In over 30 years of driving I've not had a single crash. I'd like to do my best to ensure my son has a chance of having a similar crash-free record.

As a petrol-head I wanted to buy him a decent car in readiness for his birthday. In 2016 we went on holiday to Ibiza and hired a Fiat 500 convertible. We razzed around the island in this thing and had a ball. We loved it. The steering was light, the driving position bloody awful and the entire experience fun.

So we decided his first car would be a Fiat 500.

In 2017 we holidayed in Majorca and hired a Smart ForFour, the one based on the Renault Twingo with the engine under the boot floor, and it was awful. We definitely weren't buying one of those.

So I spent every moment looking at Fiat 500s. I wanted to spend £2,000 and there were lots in budget. Trouble is every single one I looked at had a long list of MOT advisories. Frequent issues were rusty springs, bodywork issues, loose ball joints, failing brakes and holes in exhausts. We went to see a couple and they were dreadful.

And the dealers selling them (there were almost none for sale privately) were gormless idiots who seemed not to think that a service history was important. They thought polishing the tyres and the dashboard was more attractive than the engine being looked after by a decent garage.

Eventually I gave up and started to look at VW Up!s. I had to up the budget to £3,000 and even so there weren't many around. I found one local to me at a car supermarket. It had a history - though it looked super dodgy with the same hand writing in the service book - and the price was OK. Then when I said I'd buy it they added £200 on the price as an 'administrative fee'. 

I baulked at this and tried to negotiate but they came down real heavy. We went to see the manager who sat at his desk trying on all the usual bulls*t tactics, stroking his handlebar moustache as he looked at his computer, typed some stuff, looked at me, sucked his teeth and said he couldn't remove the fee.

We walked, They phoned and tried to talk more. I'd had enough. We stayed away. Cowboys.

Then I found a Seat Mii at a dealer down in Sussex. It was new enough and had highish mileage but a service history to support it.

I went down to Horsham to see it. It was lovely. It drove well and seemed an honest car. Hallelujah! I had found an honest dealer selling an honest car!!!! I negotiated £200 off the price and told the dealer I would get the car picked up, at which point he offered to deliver it for £100. I agreed.

Since then I have driven the Mii several hundred miles and enjoyed every single one of them.

It is black and is an SE. It's very important not to buy the base model.

The Seat Mii, VW Up! and Skoda Citigo are identical with the exception of front grille and badges - and colour schemes. The base model for all is very basic. No alloy wheels, no electric windows, no ESC, no split rear seats, no air conditioning, no central locking, no remote entry and no seat height adjust. The SE trim has all these. The base model also has a plastic steering wheel. Urgh, no thanks.

Our SE also has a predominantly white interior with black and grey inserts and looks very cool. It reminds me of a 1970s sci-fi palette. The materials are hard wearing and the plastics look and feel good. I particularly like the white dash trim which is hard and smooth and doesn't feel scratchy and cheap.

The dials are clear but when you adjust the driver's seat to suit you cannot see the top of the speedo. Apparently this is common to all three models.

The steering wheel adjusts for rake but not reach, and it could really do with it. As such the driving position for anyone of normal dimensions is compromised. Your knees and ankles bend a little too much - but not as much as in an Alfa Romeo.

The interior is spacious and is well designed with deep door pockets and a shelf to put your phone, out of the way of temptation for the youngsters who would normally drive it.

The stereo system is clear and powerful enough. It has an aux-in which means I've been able to fit a cheap but good quality bluetooth.

The Mii, Up! and Citigo only come with one engine - a 1-litre, 3-cylinder - and four different power outputs. Ours is the most common, the 60PS (59bhp in English). It produces 70lb ft of torque and has a 5-speed manual gearbox. The car weighs 929kg and it does 0-60mph in 14.4 seconds.

This is only half the story.

The Mii doesn't feel so slow. The engine sounds buzzy and rorty and is eager to rev. It has real character - a rarity in this day and age - and pulls nicely until 5,000rpm when it starts to run out of puff. The gearbox is light and slick.

Turn a corner and the Mii doesn't provide class leading feedback but it is sharp enough. You get a smidgen of body roll - it may be light but it is relatively tall - but it is fun to hoon around a series of bends.

And you can do all this without using seemingly any fuel. Official combined fuel consumption is 63mpg and it achieves this effortlessly. The needle on ours hardly moves and I've only filled it up once in a month despite almost daily journeys.

Finally the Mii is a practical car. The rear seats are plenty big enough and the boot is much bigger than in the Fiat 500. It also has enough space at the top to put a dog in (which you can't do in a Fiat 500), though the floor is very low. I've had to build a boot floor out of MDF and foam for our dog, which is a few inches higher than that in the car when it arrived. 

The Mii has really surprised me. It is small outside but large inside. It is comfortable but it is buzzy and good to drive. It is simple but sophisticated. I think we bought the right car.

By Matt Hubbard

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Driving Around the Cotswolds in Classic British Cars

I recently had the opportunity to drive a handful of classic cars. It was organised by Great Escape Cars as a day for journalists and bloggers and replicated their Cotswolds Highlights Tour.

I arrived at 9.30am at Great Escape's unit in Redditch - right at the south end of the Midlands and almost touching the Cotswolds. They're located down a road full of industrial units. You drive past the usual light industrial stuff...and then you see it.

Where most units' car parks are full of Transits and pickups and Corsa vans Great Escapes' is full of cars from the 80s, 70s and even 60s. This is automotive heaven.

If you book a tour with Great escapes you'll likely meet Graham Eason. I've known him for a few years as we hired an E-Type from him for my 40th (an eternity ago. And a jolly 24 hours we had.)

After we had introduced ourselves to each other and grabbed a drink Graham explained their recent change in philosophy. The business used to hire a classic car out for a day or so but now they've realised that what most customers want is a taster of each car. An hour or so in the car of their dreams.

This might sound odd but, trust me, it isn't. When we drove the E-Type it was awesome for the first couple of hours. And then it rained so we had to put the hood up. And that wasn't entirely draft-proof, which old cars aren't. And it was cold, and steamed up a bit. And after a while the whole experience started to become slightly less awesome because classic cars are also old cars and old cars don't have the dynamics of modern cars.

Anyway, back to the present. Graham promised us we'd enjoy this format. We would drive five cars over the course of a day. If you're a paying customer you get to choose which cars but our cars were chosen for us. A few people took the trouble to check out the current fleet (it does change) and put requests in.

You share a car with someone. You can swap around as much as you want but stay with your partner over the course of the day. Happily an old friend had suggested we partner up.

Our first car was a Jaguar XJS V6 in red. Knowing we'd be in another XJS later in the day my friend did all the driving for the for first leg. It was an 80s Jag and as such was clad in leather and wood (none of your modern veneer either but actual chunks of wood) and was smooth and refined as you'd expect. What I had totally forgotten about old cars is quite how small the interiors are.  The cabin was snug and everything much closer than you'd get in a modern car. There was also no storage space.  Like, none. I had a bottle of water which I had to put in the footwell and everything else went on the back seat. Each stage is around 45 minutes and 20 miles and I thoroughly enjoyed navigating using the Great Escapes amazingly comprehensive instructions.

After a tea break (literally, at Broadway Tower) it was my turn to drive and the next car was one of the jewels in the Great Escapes' crown.

HMC

The car was the mighty HMC. This is essentially an Austin Healey 3000 MkIII. You would imagine it's from the 1960s or 70s but in reality this car was built in 1999. You'd never know it though as it's a faithful replica of the original car.

You climb in to the cramped cockpit, all tan leather and wood and the steering wheel is in your lap. You move the chair back little but the wheel is still in your lap. The A-pillar is also far closer to your face than you're comfortably used to in modern cars.

Everything is at hand. Behold! There is a small recess in which you can dump your mobile but that's it. Insert the key and fire up the engine and...WOAH!

HMC interior

This HMC isn't fitted with the original Healey 2.6 or 3.0 inline-6. Instead it has a modern(ish) Rover 3.9 V8.

Fabulous.

Blip the throttle. More fabulous. Engage 1st and ease the clutch and feel the grunt. I used to own a Discovery 2 with this exact same engine and it was far quieter and more refined in the Landie. In the HMC you feel it, you hear it and you engage with it.

The gearbox is remarkably good. The throw of the gearbox is short. It's nothing like as smooth as, say a modern Fiesta or Golf, but it is comfortably mechanical.

The HMC is great fun to drive. There is no room for your right arm so it sits atop the door. The sound and grunt of the engine carries you along on a wave of enthusiasm. You laugh with your passenger at the experience of barreling along in the thing. People look at you, you acknowledge them with the briefest nod of the head. You enjoy.

After a decent drive in the HMC we stopped for lunch at the relatively new Caffeine and Machine cafe and gawped at the machinery coming and going in the car park. They've really found a niche and have located their premises perfectly. Engineers from JLR and Aston Martin turned up in amazing machinery and someone turned up in Ferrari Daytona to go get a coffee and watch people gawp at his car.

After lunch we were given the keys to a Mk2 Jaguar. Now this would be a far different experience to the HMC. The Mk2 was manufactured in 1965 and was powered by a 3.8 litre inline-6 engine.

Jaguar Mk2 3.8

The Mk2 was designed in the 1950s and it feels it. You climb in and it feels like you're sitting in a museum. It's relatively spacious but there's still no cubby space to put a phone or drink.

Leather and wood abound. Great planks of wood, hewn from logs and planed, sanded and varnished by craftsmen. The colours are beiges and tans, natural in look, feel and smell.

The driving position is OK. The chair is comfortable but a bit too upright. Adjustment is minimal. The steering wheel is large, wooden and thin. The engine fires up from a Bakelite button in the middle of the dash and is incredibly smooth.

The getaway is anything but smooth. It takes quite some time to get used to but you kangaroo away from the off the first few times you try. On my first ever drive - from a fuel station on a main road - I hadn't shut the door properly so as we lurched down the road the door flew open and I cursed and almost fell out of the car as I grabbed the door to pull it closed. My passenger and I laughed so much it hurt our ribs.

Having driven one before I know the Mk2 has pretty vague steering but this one was quite good. You don't want to drive too fast in it but it surprised.  I enjoyed our spin in the old girl.

Next up was my turn in an XJS. In 1985 I was 14 and that year a film called The Supergrass was released. It was a Comic Strip film with the usual Comic Strip cast and featured Adrian Edmonson and Jennifer Saunders driving down to Cornwall in an XJS. Ever since then I've loved the XJS. It was cool then and it is cool now.

Jaguar XHS V12

Only now it is an old car. 'Our' XJS was a blue 5.3 V12 built in 1988. Back then it was rivalled only by the 911 as the ultimate sports coupe.

They say that you shouldn't meet your heros. In this case I was glad I did.

The XJS' cabin is cramped. Once in the comfortable seat you could touch the windscreen with the palm of your hand (please don't, I have a thing about fingerprints on windows). The pedals and wheel are perfectly placed.

The controls are pretty basic and are formed by big switches and dials. Each side of the cockpit has their own ashtray and the glovebox opens down to form a perfectly flat surface with a mirror which I cannot for the life of me imagine would be useful to a yuppie in 1988...

Fire up the engine and... Is it on? Yes you can feel it. Blip the throttle and you can feel it twist. This is an engine with modesty. It has power and it has torque but it does not feel the need to shout about them. They can be accessed when necessary but it prefers smoothness and effortlessness.

Slip it into drive and and the steering feels oily smooth. The Jaguar virgin might think this is simply too much lightness but it is a feature that dictates the feel of a true Jag right up to the present day.

Slip and slide along at speed and the V12 XJS simply glides with your steering inputs minimal.

The bonnet is as massive as the windscreen is close. All in all this was one hero I was glad to meet. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the XJS.

Our final drive of the day was a Triumph Herald. This was a stand in for the Morris Minor Traveller who's dynamo gave upon the ghost.

Triumph Herald

People who knew about these things did not give us good feedback on the lowly Herald.

With some trepidation we clambered aboard. It was tiny and open. The day was overcast but dry. If it had started raining I'm sure we could have pulled up the hood but I'm not sure how.

We pulled away and were surprised. Sure the tiny Herald is a tiny car with virtually no room for anything in the cabin, but the engine was sprightly. It's the 1400cc from the Spitfire and sounded great, especially as you cruise along on a trailing throttle.

The steering was pretty vague and the gears were...not always easy to engage. Third was a particular challenge. But my co-driver and I found the whole experience charming.

We found that the top speed of the Herald was around 50mph, after which the engine and gearbox felt stressed enough, and the brakes' capacity to come to a safe stop was about as much as was safe.

But stay under 50 and it was a hoot.

We'd set off from Redditch at 10am and at 3.30pm eased back in to the road leading to the unit occupied by Great Escapes.

The day had been fabulous fun. The cars were brilliant to drive and I'd met my hero, the XJS, and had not been disappointed.

Graham had been right to restructure the business towards shorter drives in lots of cars. More than an hour or so in most would be a little too much. Although I could quite happily steer the XJS all day.

By Matt Hubbard

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2008 BMW 320d M Sport E90 Video Review

I've owned my BMW 320d M Sport E90 since last June which for me is an eternity! So I thought I'd better get around to filming a video about it.

I've previously written about the car which you can read here and here.

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How The Hell Can A 10 Year Old BMW 320d Be Better Than A New VW Golf R?

My recent car history has been quite interesting. For a few years I spent and lost far too much money on a succession of box ticking cars starting with a V6 Audi TT, a Lotus Elise and a Porsche 996 911. They all cost me money, the 911 especially so when the engine exploded in a cloud of steam - literally. 22 litres of coolant being dumped out of a hole in the engine tends to do that.

So then I decided to be sensible and bought a 2007 BMW 330i and it was good and I thoroughly enjoyed driving it. I even drove 857 miles in one day in it.

But then the engine developed an intermittent fault where it would briefly drop power at low revs which was annoying. So I thought I'd buy a new car because they don't go wrong. I reckoned that I could just afford the payments for a new VW Golf R, so I ordered one.

God it was good. 306bhp from a 2-litre turbocharged engine it would do 0-62mph in 4.6 seconds and it did it in a clinical, precise manner. No histrionics just blam blam blam through its ultra-slick 7 speed dual clutch automated manual gearbox. Passengers new to the car would let out a little shriek as I put my foot down and let the car catapult us forward.

And it was great to drive too. 1505kg and four wheel drive, you could chuck it round corners and put your foot down immediately post apex and it would pick up the pace without a hint of understeer, oversteer or wheelspin. I once drove it all round Europe over the course of a week and it was brilliant on the motorway, on the amazing roads to be found in the Alps and Pyrenees and cruising the Riviera.

Driving the Golf R down the Stelvio pass is something I'll always remember.

But then after a year's ownership and 15,000 miles for reasons beyond my control (a tax bill) I had to sell the Golf. I logged into the VW finance website and got a settlement figure immediately. It was a reasonable sum so I cleaned the car thoroughly, wrote an advert and posted it on Autotrader at 10pm one Saturday.

The first call came in at 7.30am Sunday. The second at 8am. I ignored both. I answered the third at 8.15am. He was from Birmingham and wanted to come and buy the car that day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought. He said he would call back. Another call at 8.30am. He was from Cardiff and he wanted to buy the car that day. Oh, I thought.

Long story short I received 20 emails and 30 phone calls that morning. I had several offers and at 2pm two young chaps arrived and smoked half a packet of cigarettes in my driveway whilst they inspected the car. They wouldn't go in the house because they were scared of my incredibly friendly border collie.

One of them test drove the car (after showing me his trader's insurance certificate) absolutely terribly and then turned to me and said, "Most people get scared when I drive them cos I drive fast, but it's OK I'm a great driver." He had been doing 15mph around the village then put his foot down on the dead straight A-road which leads out of the village and went up to 88mph. We didn't travel in time but I did know he was going to buy the car so I kept shtum.

At one point he let go of the wheel and it turned slightly left. He told me the steering was broken and that he would have to knock some money off the price. I explained to him that roads have something called camber so that the rain can drain away...

After all sorts of daft tactics they bought the car from me for the price I had asked and drove it away. I settled the finance with VW and that was that.

16 hours after placing the ad, and expecting it to take several weeks to sell, I was carless.

I hadn't even thought about how I was going to pay for a new car. I had no budget, no finance.  Hmmm.

So I surfed the adverts on eBay and Autotrader. After a lot of research I decided that I wanted either a Mk5 Golf GTI or a BMW 3-series. My budget would be up to £3k but I'd rather pay less.

After scouring dozens of ads for each I realised that I could only really get a scruffy GTI for the money. Some had been modified, some had missing histories, some had dents and dings, some had rust.

There was a real variety of 3-series. There were a lot of E46s in varying specs and conditions, but an E46 feels quite old nowadays. I preferred an E90, and a 330i if possible. But 330s in both i and d form were few and far between, and generally a bit too tatty.

On the Monday morning I saw an ad for an E90 320d for sale from a dealer just two miles from home. It was incredibly cheap for a 2008. It had only two owners, a clean MOT history, full service history and new tyres all round but had racked up an incredible 198,400 miles in its ten years.

I went to see it at lunch and saw it had a few minor car park dings and the wheels had been kerbed and some lacquer on the bonnet was peeling but the interior was great and it was generally solid. The dealer had taken it as a trade in for a much newer 525d and just wanted rid so I made him a daft offer. We negotiated a little but not much and I bought it for £2300.

From one year old Golf R to a leggy 10 year old 320d in just one day. But needs must.

The 320d produces 174bhp and 258lb/ft of torque, does 0-60mph in 7.6 seconds and weighs 1430kg.

It is rear wheel drive as opposed to the Golf's four wheel drive and it is a manual rather than DSG.

I've owned the BMW for two weeks and driven it 300 miles and have been taken aback at how good it is. In some areas it is better than the Golf - a car that is worth ten times as much.

The BMW's driving position is better than the Golf's. You sit low in the BM and stretch your legs out. The E90's seats adjust almost too much. It takes forever to find the right position but when you do it feels perfect. In the Golf you're always comprised by a hatchback's shallower pedal box. In the 320d everything feels exactly where it should be but in the Golf you understand the car is designed to fit anyone of any size which suits most people most of the time but no-one all of the time.

Mind you the tech in the Golf is far superior. It has a touch screen with a satnav and digital radio and bluetooth and trip computers and all sorts of gubbins - half of which you don't use or need. It also has adaptive cruise control. The BMW doesn't have a screen at all so you need to plug in a satnav, and then you realise that a £150 TomTom is far superior to the factory VW satnav and that Google Maps on your phone is far superior to both of those.

The BMW also has the ability to play music from your phone, you just need to plug in an aux cable. And it does have cruise control, just not adaptive. And I love adaptive cruise and will miss it.

The 320's interior is ten years old but it is nicer than the Golf's. The materials used are better and the design and execution is superior, as it would be - the 3-series has always been pitched as a premium car. But it's surprising that even a ten year old car, given a thorough clean, can have a better interior than a current model.

In a straight line the R beats the 320d in every way but one. It is faster in every metric. The BM simply does not have the wow factor. It is merely quick as opposed to insanely fast. But the Golf has a much firmer suspension and a more brittle ride. Where the Golf crashes into speed bumps and hits pot holes with such a bang you are amazed the alloys don't crack the BMW soaks these things up without breaking sweat.

At nearly 200,000 miles you'd imagine the BMW would be soggy but it has new shocks at the rear and feels better than I imagined it would.

On a motorway cruise both cars are equal. Where the Golf has adaptive cruise the BMW uses 50% less fuel. Both have similar levels of noise, both have a comfortable ride and both have enough power  to cruise at decent speed.

But turn off the motorway and drive on good roads and the BMW edges ahead. Where the Golf is fast and precise like an F1 car the BMW makes you feel like Peter Brock, moving and sliding over the mountain section of the Bathurst circuit in his touring car.

The Golf feels digital where the BMW feels analogue. The 3-series' fat steering wheel and low slung seat deliver feedback the Golf can only dream of. You can feel it slip and slide just millimetres and fractions of degrees and adjust accordingly. This arguably creates a greater serotonin rush than the Golf's pure speed.

The Golf's DSG gearbox is an awesome piece of automotive engineering but the BMW's fairly average, short throw, manual gearbox delivers a better and more involved experience.

You can throw both cars around. The Golf feels precise and unflustered. It is like Ivan Drago in Rocky IV - it is unyielding in the way it always delivers and never flinches. Meanwhile the 320d, lighter by almost 100kg, with a better front to rear weight distribution, rear wheel drive and hydraulic power steering uses its advantages to greater effect. The rear feels mobile and adjustable - though I do think it would feel too light when pushed hard on track - and the front goes where you ask and when it does slip you adjust accordingly with tangible reward.

The Golf just delivers, expertly. I enjoyed it without reservation. It was great looking and felt great to be in and to drive. The tech was interesting and mostly useful and the doors made a lovely noise when you shut them.

If you avoid speed bumps, potholes and poorly surfaced roads and want to drive at 15mph around town and 90mph on A-roads then the Golf is easily the better car but for most other conditions the BMW is actually the more involving car to drive.

I loved the Golf but in the BMW I have rediscovered the soul of driving, and I hadn't even realised it had gone.

If I could have another Golf R I would but for now I am not at all unhappy with my old, high mileage, diesel BMW.

By Matt Hubbard

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Review - BMW E90 330i M Sport

This past couple of years have been quite ruinous ones in terms of me and cars. At the start of last year I owned an Audi TT 3.2 V6 coupe but that got sold and I bought an Elise. Now the Elise was a good car but was so ridiculously impractical I quite soon got bored of having to clamber in and out, and having nowhere to put anything in it, and getting 70mph rain in the face whilst on the motorway in a storm.

So I sold that at a four figure loss and bought a 911. The 911 was a 2000 3.2 Carrera 2 with a reconditioned engine. It was everything a 911 shouldn't be - automatic, convertible, 996. The engines in 996s have a habit of exploding but mine had a reconditioned engine fitted two years earlier so was safe.

It lasted 3 weeks before the engine exploded at 60mph and 6,000rpm. 22 litres of coolant and oil were thrown into the air as the engine locked up and we coasted to a halt. In the 3 weeks of ownership I had spent a small fortune on a new battery, alternator and sound system. I sold it for less than half what I had spent on it.

Oh, I bought a new bike too. A brand new Triumph Tiger 800 XCx.

Through all this has been my trusty Volvo XC60 D4 R-Design. It's a car I love for its ride, quality, tech, ease of use and general familiarity and comfort. But it's not exactly a dynamic vehicle. It's not one you'd take for a drive for the sake of it.

The Volvo is leased and the lease comes to an end in early 2017.  I'd been thinking about what to replace it with since...ooh about Easter.

99% of our village owns a new Land Rover Discovery Sport. It's a lovely looking thing, especially in red with black wheels. I've looked at buying and leasing one but the finances just don't stack up for me. I like a discount on a car and Disco Sports are expensive for what they are. Evoques are cheaper but I haven't the urge to start a mobile hairdressing business yet.

So then I started looking at VW Golfs. If lease deals on Golf Rs were dirt cheap I would have signed up for one. But they aren't at the moment. So I started looking at buying a GTi. It's around £27k specced how I'd like it but you can get one discounted to about £23k if you know where to look.

But I had various conversations with my son (who I trust on these kind of things) about buying or leasing new vs buying used. One thing the Volvo has never been is mine. Any new car wouldn't ever be mine. Even if you're buying one it would be on a PCP deal and with that you give it back at the end of the term. And son reckoned owning a car would be better than not. And I agreed with him.

So I started thinking about budgets and monthly payments and decided I would buy a Mk6 Golf GTi. The Mk6 is the best looking Golf, is quick, has all the tech I want - heated seats, cruise control, bluetooth, is practical enough for us and is good to drive.

Decision made I gave myself a couple of months to find and buy the best I could find.

But then one week I thought about BMWs. Now me and BMW don't have the best history. I've had an E36 320i SE, an E36 323i Touring, an E46 318i SE and an E39 525td Touring. I didn't really like any of them. None were quick and the driving position was compromised in all the 3-Series I'd owned. The throttle pedal was too stiff in the 323i. They all annoyed me in some way or other.

The only BMW I ever liked was a 435i M Sport Coupe. That was pretty good.

I need a four or five door car so Kes, my border collie, can ride in the back. I also fancied an auto this time. Given a choice I'd rather have a bigger naturally aspirated engine than a smaller turbocharged one.

I did my research and could afford an early 320i F30 or a later E90 with a higher spec and decent engine. I pored over the online ads. I preferred the shape of the saloon E90 than the F30 which looks big and bloated in comparison.

I narrowed it down to wanting an E90 330i M Sport saloon with the auto gearbox. The M Sport not only offers a higher spec than lower models but looks much better with it's bodykit and 18 inch wheels. I didn't want to buy from a dealer so looked at the private ads only. A few looked good.

One Saturday I was headed to the Motorcycle Live show at the Birmingham NEC. There was a particularly good looking 330i only a few miles away so I went to have a look at it on the way.

As soon as I saw it I was hooked. Great looking in silver it was a 2007 car with only 53,000 miles on the clock and a full service history. I could have afforded a newer car but this one wanted for nothing and would save me a few quid over a later one. I left a cash deposit and returned the next day with the balance.

I was the owner of a 2007 330i M Sport with auto transmission. Since then I've put a good few miles on it, done some motorway work, driven into London and gone for a couple of drives purely for the sake of it.

I love its looks, its sharp, clean lines and its lack of vulgarity. I also love the fact it feels solid, a quality motor that belies its age. Stick a modern infotainment system in it and it could pass for a much newer car.

The drivetrain is almost perfect. The engine is the N52 3-litre inline 6-cylinder which produces 250hp and 230lb ft of torque. It's a thing of wonder. It sounds fantastic and has a decent spread of torque across the range with none of the lag or low rev weakness of a turbocharged engine. The gearbox is a 6-speed automatic with sport mode for later changes and allies well with the engine.

The car looks good outside and in. Previous BMWs I've owned have had quite slabby and not very supportive seats but the seats in this car are comfortable and supportive, and body figure hugging. They're comfortable on a long drive and sporty when you're pressing on.

The interior is light years ahead of that in older BMWs. With flourishes of aluminium trim and improved design and layout it feels as good as it looks. The steering wheel is chunky and the dials clear - although I would have preferred a digital speed readout.

It has almost all the tech I've got used to in the Volvo and other new cars but falls over in the infotainment area.

My 330i has iDrive. iDrive was an early attempt to remove some functionality from buttons and dials and embed it in a screen based system. Some climate controls, almost all the entertainment and most of the car's dynamic controls are accessed via iDrive. It works from a single rotary knob and a button. It also contains a satnav which, because it's a few years old, is pretty hopeless.

Yes it is easy to use whilst on the move but no it is not intuitive. It does not have DAB radio and it does not have a USB connection (although it was available as an option at the time) or Bluetooth for music, although bizarrely it does have Bluetooth for phone calls.

To play music I either have to play CDs or plug my phone to the Aux in socket, which is OK for longer journeys.

Those in the front are quite cosseted with plenty of room, a pair of cup holders, decent door pockets, heated seats and individual climate controls. Those in the back have less room but still much more than in older 3-Series. The boot is quite big and the floor surprisingly low for a rear wheel drive car.

Ah yes, rear wheel drive. The 3-Series' dynamic masterstroke. So what is it like to drive?

I've driven everything from a BRZ to a 911 via a Rolls Royce Wraith. I've driven a Lotus Evora around the track at Hethel, I've chucked a Cayman R around the Porsche track at Silverstone and I've wrung the neck of a Radical SR3 RS around the Grand Prix track at Silverstone. I've got to know rear wheel drive cars in front, mid and rear engined forms quite a lot over the years.

The 330i M Sport makes a damn good show of itself. On the motorways and A-roads it's a comfortable cruiser that's quiet and refined. But find somewhere more challenging and it becomes a different beast.

You forget the rear seats and boot. You forget you are in a saloon. You sit low in the car and you drive it like a coupe.  The engine is strong and the gearbox fast moving - as long as you've selected sport.

The front end of the car has slightly less feel than I would have liked but the rear makes up for it. After a bit of practice you can lean on the rear and feel it moving, leaning on the suspension as it powers round a corner.

If the road is slightly unsettled or if you drive it like you have hooves instead of feet the traction control button flashes like a Christmas light. Turn it off and the rear wheels lose grip quickly.

Yet the front never loses grip.

Some cars are more than the sum of their parts and this is one such. When driving you can feel its fluidity, the chassis giving great feedback, allowing you to position it on the road just as you would like.

At high and low speeds and with short and long radius bends it feels superb to drive. And it does this without commotion. Its feathers never feel unruffled. It stays refined even when the driver's eyes are on stalks and his palms sweating.

It does have its faults. The gearbox is a bit hesitant to change down when not in Sport mode and the wheels can follow tracks and ruts in the road.

I set out to buy a car that was both practical and fun to drive, and I succeeded. They say that the sign of a great car is that when you pull into your drive and walk toward your front door you turn and look back at it. I do this every time I drive mine.

By Matt Hubbard

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2016 Ford Mustang 2.3 EcoBoost Review

Ford has just launched the latest version of its iconic Mustang. In recent years the Mustang had lost its way. The 80s and 90s weren't kind to it in terms of looks and dynamics and the 2005 Mustang was still a bit too big and basic for European tastes. And the steering wheel stayed stubbornly on the left.

Enter the sixth generation Mustang. This is the first Mustang designed to be sold the world over. It is the first Mustang with independent rear suspension, the first Mustang available in right hand drive and the first Mustang available with a 4-cylinder engine. 

Unlike most Mustang reviews you'll read I paid for mine (well, rented it) and I drove it 3,800 miles in 11 days.

My son and I decided that over Easter 2016 we'd drive from Miami to San Francisco and that we'd do so in a convertible - hopefully a Mustang. In terms of trips to the US I'd only ever been to New York for a weekend before and had never visited southern America or hired a car in the US before. I had heard stories that the choice available at airport rental centres was often limited to whatever was left at any particular time of day.

I was dreading turning up to find that the only car left was a Pontiac Grand Prix or something similarly dire.

As it turned out American car rental is a huge industry that runs extremely smoothly. The rental place at San Francisco airport is a short (free) train ride from the terminal and is located in a massive multi-storey car park. When we arrived we were greeted by a bunch of men wearing shiny jackets, one of whom looked at our paperwork and said we could pick any car from aisle 32.  

Aisle 32 consisted purely of Chevrolet Camaro convertibles and Ford Mustang convertibles. Result. The bad news was all of them were powered by 4-cylinder engines. Oh well. My son picked out a bright orange Mustang and we headed into downtown Miami.

First impressions were given over to getting used to driving on the wrong right side of the road in a left hand drive car. My left elbow had a door in the way and my right elbow had nowhere to rest.

Day 1 involved driving 300 miles north, in the direction Daytona Beach - whilst stopping over to take some photos in front of a very distant Kennedy Space Centre.

As soon as I got used to the excitement of driving on the left side of the car on the right side of the road I started to focus on the car itself. It was a brand new model with only 3,000 miles on the clock. The 2.3 litre inline-4 is shared with the Focus RS where it has garnered much praise. In the Mustang it produces 310bhp and 300lb ft of torque and does 0-60mph in 5.4 seconds and has a top speed of 154mph.

So it's fast. And it feels it.

Our car was fitted with an automatic gearbox. In the best tradition of the muscle car this is not a high tech flappy paddle 'box but a normal 6-speed automatic transmission. Unlike many old-school auto-boxes the Mustang's unit felt tight and quick and didn't feel like it lost any power in between its cogs. 

Even with the supposedly weedy (and derided in the UK press) 2.3 EcoBoost engine the Mustang is a seriously fast car. Put your foot flat to the floor and it gathers its skirts and takes off down the road in a very dramatic fashion. On more than one occasion the satnav, which sat on the dash on a bean bag type thing, flew off the dash.

The Mustang looks the part too. It helped that ours was orange but its designer (a Scotsman called Moray Callum (brother of famed Jaguar designer Ian Callum)) has a fine eye for this kid of thing and has managed to combine traditional muscle car looks and stance with a finer European finesse. 

UK petrolheads love the Mustang but so too do Americans. We were told at gas stations in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California that our car looked great, or even "purdy".

The interior is pretty good too. I had expectations of horrendous elephant-hide plastic and overly shiny leather but we mustn't forget that this 'stang was designed with Europeans in mind, and the interior lives up to our expectations. The leather is tolerable and the plastic almost of Volvo standards.

The seats are very comfortable. On our longest day we drove 700 miles in 10 hours, from Dallas to Santa Fe, and I had more trouble from sun burn on the back of my neck than the seats.

The twin dials are big and clear with revs in one and speed in the other, although I do prefer a nice big digital speed readout in these days of nasty electronic policing. There is plenty of room for accoutrements in the cabin with a decent sized glove box and a big bin under the arm rest - which is too low and nowhere near your arm or even elbow.

Whilst the front seats are comfortable the rear seats are only any good for small children and legless adults, although they are fine for storage of rucsacs, multipacks of water (in case of breakdown in the desert) and general junk that two people accumulate over two weeks.

The roof is fabric and will only fold up or down whilst stationary. It doesn't take up much room in the boot, which is big enough for two suitcases with plenty of room either side. The interior is quite quiet with the roof up but noisier and windier than many euro cars with the roof down. We often drove for a few hours and then both agreed the roof should go up to give us a rest from the buffeting. 

The new Mustang has to be up to date in terms of electronics and happily it is. There is a USB charger port under the armrest and two 12v points (which are more useful as they charge iPhones much quicker)  - one near the radio and one under the armrest.

The entertainment system features FM and satellite radio in the US and digital radio in the UK. You can also Bluetooth music from your phone or play a CD. We used the Bluetooth streaming option for up to 7 hours a day every day and it worked almost without fault - dropping out about 5 times in 70 hours of driving.

So that's the specs, looks and interior. How is the new Mustang to drive?

Well, it's damn fine. As mentioned previously it is a fast car - but it doesn't really feel like a sports car, more a grand tourer. I once drove 200 miles in a Porsche Cayman 981 and ended the trip feeling tired and sore but in the Mustang we averaged 350 miles a day for nearly two weeks. The Porsche would be the better car round a track but the Mustang is better for day to day distance driving.

It does have a potentially serious problem though. It generates a kind of hum from around 40mph to 60mph. It's not a really vibration and it's not engine related as it doesn't alter with engine speed but it does seems to come and go depending on conditions. It gets worse when the engine is laboured - say on cruise control at 50mph when the gearbox is in top gear and the engine labouring slightly. But, as I say, it doesn't seem to vary with engine speed. Over nearly two weeks it stayed with us, on and off. I never could put my finger on what caused it. It did get annoying at times but sometimes I didn't notice it. It's certainly not something I've encountered in a car before.

Notwithstanding that the Mustang is a seriously smooth driver. The suspension is plush, which means it does allow a certain amount of lean in corners, and the whole droving experience feels laid back.

What the Mustang has, in abundance, is character. Whether shooting down a dead straight highway through the badlands or crawling along the Las Vegas strip it feels like it has star power and charisma. When in Los Angeles we drove it along Mulholland Drive, where many of the old school Hollywood Stars live, and the Mustang felt right at home.

Many reviews conclude that the 2016 Mustang is a fine car but that the 2.3 litre engine should be ditched in favour of the V8. I haven't driven the V8 but I can tell you that even in its own backyard the 4-cylinder performs superbly, even if it doesn't make the right, or indeed any, noise.

If I were to repeat the trip I would definitely choose the Mustang again. It's a fantastic car. As a convertible I'd choose it above many European models such as the Mercedes E-Class and BMW 3-Series.

I couldn't imagine driving any other car through those vast desert vistas, along crowded Dallas freeways, crawling down characterful New Orleans streets or even splashing through huge thunderstorms in Florida. The Mustang looked after us every step of the way and in return we loved it, despite the odd foible.

The Mustang is a relatively cheap proposition. It's also very good looking, fast, practical, comfortable and easy to live with on a day to day basis.

I just hope Ford look into 'the hum' and come up with a solution.

By Matt Hubbard 

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2003 Mini Cooper S (R53) Review (And How I Came To Buy It)

After an absolute age I sold my Lotus Elise. My reasons for selling it were outlined here and once I'd decided it had to go I got slightly more annoyed with it as each day passed unsold.

One horrible day in early February I went into the garage to load the tumble dryer. My Triumph Tiger is a fair bit longer than the Street Triple which preceded it. The Tiger was at the back of the garage and the Elise in front of it but shuffled really far forwards so there wasn't much room between it and my workbench - and the tumble dryer adjacent. I caught the edge of my kneecap against the Elise's number plate and swore loudly.

After two months on sale it had become just a lump that was in the way. I'd never really bonded with it and its state of unsoldness (someone call Oxford - I invented a new word) was wearing really thin. Four people had viewed it and taken it for extensive test drives and had taken up many hours of my time - and then not bought it. The day before the kneecapping incident a young man had spent two hours poring over every last detail and then proceeded to piss me around with a series of offers with catches attached. He wanted me to take it to a Lotus expert for an independent inspection as well as service it and MOT it. In polite terms I let him know he could Foxtrot Oscar.

"Will the damn thing ever sell?" is not what I was thinking when I received a phone call the next day at 8.30am whilst still asleep. "Yes?" I barked as I answered the unrecognised number. "I'm calling about the Lotus," said the voice. I snapped to attention. We spoke for thirty minutes. I tried to hide my just having woken-upness. He sounded genuine. He sounded sane. He did not sound like your typical Lotus-buying arse-merchant. He would visit the next morning.

They next morning I walked round the car to give it a check over and noticed the front number plate was hanging off.

On an Elise the front plate is stuck on with industrial-spec double sided sticky tape. I did not have any in the house and it was too late to go shopping. 99% of Elise buyers want a car that is 99.9% perfect and a hanging off number plate is reason enough to walk away from a sale - after having spent  five hours asking the seller questions that would flummox even Lotus' longest serving employee.

I tried to stick it on with a piece of normal sellotape folded back on itself but this did not work. Obviously. I was desperately trying to make it stick in place by mind power alone when the prospective buyer turned up.

As it turned out he was a normal person rather than the usual Lotus time-waster buyer and after just half an hour he bought the car. He paid me the money and drove away in it, very happy.

I immediately paid off the loan which I had taken out to buy the Elise - and  which was the over-riding reason for selling it.

However I did want another second car. I love my XC60 but I lease it and I've overshot the allowed mileage by nearly 50% and rather than pay extra for the privilege of driving it more than I should I wanted to buy a second car.

Eagle-eyed Speedmonkey readers will remember that in November last year I declared I needed a "Don't Give A Shit Car," and that that would be a 2004 Mini Cooper S.

I set myself a budget of £2,500, which I could afford without taking out a loan, and spent hours looking at the classifieds for the perfect Cooper S.

I ignored all those sold by dealers who at that budget I consider (through experience) to be cowboys. I found one for sale in Cornwall. I texted a mate and asked if he fancied a trip to Truro that Saturday (yes he'd like that he said) and texted the seller. Unfortunately she was away for the next weekend.

I didn't really like any others. Missing service history, horrible colours, horrible condition, horrible places, horrible sellers.

Then one Friday I was working from home. Whilst making a cup of tea I checked the Autotrader app and a new private ad for a Cooper S popped up. It had done 105,000 miles, had a full service history, one lady had owned it for the past five years and it was only ten miles from home.

I called the seller and asked if I could see it on Saturday. "You'll be lucky," he said, "...the phone's been ringing off the hook."

I knew why. At £1,750 it was around £750 cheaper than anything else of the same spec and condition.  "OK, I'll be there at lunch," I said.

I ignored every one of my own rules for buying a used car, primarily because the seller was obviously a decent bloke (and that counts for a lot when buying used) and because at the price it was a complete steal. After a short inspection and an even shorter test drive I offered the full asking price, paid a deposit and shook hands on the deal. I couldn't afford to haggle or muck him about because the usual second hand dealer ghouls were phoning him every few minutes offering him close to the asking price.

The next morning my mate who was going to come to Cornwall came instead to Wokingham and we picked the car up.

I drove to Halfrauds to buy a Pure DAB digital radio to replace the analogue unit in the dash as well as 5 litres of 5W30, an oil filter and four Bosch spark plugs.

Once home and with a large cup of tea I set about servicing my new (to me) Mini Cooper S. It had only been serviced six months previously but I wanted to get to know it and give it a good start to my ownership of it.

The servicing was ridiculously easy. The engine is well packaged and everything was easy to get at.

Afterwards I filled it up with super unleaded (not necessary but I wanted to treat it) and took it for a proper test drive.

A 2003 Mini Cooper S has a 1.6 litre, 4-cylinder engine and is fitted with a supercharger. For those who don't know this is similar to a turbocharger but instead of being fed by exhaust gases is driven by a belt from the engine.  The supercharger is cooled by an intercooler which sits behind the scoop in the bonnet - so it is there for a reason.

The car has 163bhp, 155b ft of torque, does 0-60mph in 7 seconds and weighs around 1,140kg.

The driving position is great. The bulkhead sits quite far forward so the footwell is relatively deep which means you can sit with your legs out like you would in a rear wheel drive sportscar. The interior is nicely designed but the seats in mine are part cloth (in an eye-watering shade of Smurf blue) and part leather.

The steering wheel feels chunky as does the gear lever. The switchgear is designed for maximum retro effect but looks and feels of a decent quality.

Some people told me the Mini is a girl's car but a) it looks good, b) it's fast, c) I don't care. And it really does look good, inside and out.

My own car misses some options I would have liked, namely full leather seats, heated seats, twin dials (we'll come to those in a minute) and cruise control but it makes up for all those because it has the glass panoramic roof. This is so big it makes the car feel like a Targa. Full epicness (another new word!).

The only real let-down inside the car is the fact the speed readout is in the middle of the dashboard. If the original owner had specced satnav this would have been housed in the centre of the dash and instead of just the rev-counter being located above the steering column two dials (speed and revs) would have sat just below the driver's view of the road. Instead working out the speed means briefly looking down and to the left - which is silly.

Driving the Cooper S is an absolute hoot. The engine has a lot less low-down torque than I imagined and the gearbox is less than smooth. My main driver this past year has been my Volvo XC60 which has one megaton of torque and the smoothest gearchange outside of Madonna's wardrobe.

But once used to these twin foibles I drove the Mini as it should be driven. Hard. And by god it rewards. You'll notice in the photos the overhangs are absolutely tiny. This means you can chuck the car this way and that and it'll comply. It turns like a Jack Russell on carpet and it goes like the proverbial clappers as long as you change gear right in the red zone. And it refuses to understeer no matter what you do.

The ride is less than relaxed but the upside is you feel the road and what is going on with the wheels. The power is linear which means you don't really get torque steer but it's still a good idea to turn the traction control off because it does cut in far too early if, for example, you corner quickly and get the inside front wheel spinning slightly.

For less than two grand I can't think of another car with four seats that'll deliver so much fun. I suppose a Renault Clio 182 might do but once you've bought one you'll realise you have bought a Renault and this will make you annoyed.

By Matt Hubbard

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2016 Triumph Tiger 800XCx - 400 Miles On A Motorcycle In January

Modern cars don't need running in. My Volvo XC60 will go in for its first service soon - at 12,000 miles and 12 months old. Modern motorcycles, with their higher revving and higher performing engines, do need running in.

My new Triumph Tiger 800XCx needs running at half revs for the first 600 miles after which it will head to the dealer for an oil and filter change.

For the first couple of weeks after taking delivery I was frustrated that I hadn't ridden the Tiger that much and I was frustrated that when I did I could only use the first 6,000 rpm.

So I decided to take it on a road trip. I called my brother, who lives 200 miles away, to see if he was free for me to pop at the weekend. He was. I prayed for clear weather.

Saturday arrived and the sky was clear. Being late January this also meant all the warmth had escaped from the surface of earth. The bike told me it was 4°C. Very cold for riding a bike.

I had strapped a tail pack to the rear seat and stuffed a change of clothes and my tooth brush in it. I dressed in leathers, rather than full waterproof gear, because my leathers are more comfortable than my ancient waterproofs.

I wore thick socks in my boots and a thick fleece under my jacket. It was 11am and it was damn cold when I fired up the Tiger.

The bike has an electronic display with all sorts of information. You can choose trip 1 or trip 2 and within those you can select miles covered, average mpg, average speed and time on the road. The bike also tells you which gear you are in, what the temperature is, how many miles until the tank is empty and what speed you have set the cruise control.

Yes, cruise control. I had never ridden a bike with cruise control before.

The Tiger is a big bike. I have to really swing my leg over the seat and with a tail pack on this is even more difficult. Once on the bike and rolling it feels much lighter and agile than it actually is. Within a few miles I felt confident in it and in my ability to control it.

I was also feeling pretty cold. The first few miles were 30mph country lanes but then I was on the M4 followed by the A34 it was 80mph cruising.

God I was grateful for the heated grips and hand guards. In the past I've come off a bike and not been able to feel my fingers for half an hour afterwards but on the Tiger my hands will always be toasty. This was something of a revelation.

My feet were also warm, due to the hiking socks I was wearing. Unfortunately the rest of me wasn't quite so warm. In fact the cold air rushing around my neck and into my helmet felt a lot colder than 4°C - that's wind chill for you.

Otherwise the bike was great. Even though I could only use half revs it had plenty of power and the cruise control was amazing. It works just the same as in a car but when you disengage it it does jolt the bike a bit, something I learned to anticipate.

100 miles passed smoothly and I stopped at a service station for fuel for the bike and for me. Due to the bars being wider than I was used to and the fact I wasn't bike-fit I my shoulders were aching. I necked a chocolate cake for calories and a hot chocolate for warmth and set off again.

My core temperature was lower than I would have liked but the second half of the journey passed without event. When I got to my brothers I fell off the bike and drank a gallon of tea.

The next day I headed back home. This time the weather was warmer but wetter. Maybe I should have worn waterproof gear. My brother had an all in one waterproof over-suit but it wasn't quite big enough for me and I felt it would have hindered my riding so I didn't use it.

It was drizzling when I left. I had filled up with fuel at the end of the previous day so had a full tank which would be good for around 150 miles.

The rain didn't stop but with the screen, hand guards and bits and pieces of plastic fairing it was only really my lower legs and shoulders which were wet.

After an hour I realised I was really enjoying the journey. The previous day had been dominated by cold and getting used to the bike. Now, with experience and a slightly higher temperature, I was able to focus on the bike, my riding and all those things a biker enjoys on a ride.

After another hour I stopped for fuel and lunch and chatted with a fellow biker. He was wearing a bin bag under his leathers. He had ridden 200 miles on Friday but his clutch cable had snapped on the journey and he'd been stuck by the side of the M6 in the pouring rain waiting for a recovery truck. All his gear was sodden, even two days later. Poor bugger.

On the rest of the journey I continued to enjoy the bike and the ride and my confidence increased to the extent I was able to ride just as I had on my old Street Triple.

I arrived home three hours after leaving and having covered almost 400 miles in two days. I was exhausted but elated. Riding a motorcycle in January isn't the most sensible thing to do but the Tiger had made it bearable, and even fun.

And now it is run-in. It will be serviced next weekend and then I'll be able to rev it right the way up to the red line and enjoy all that power.

Can't wait.

By Matt Hubbard

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Lotus Elise S2 Review

My day to day car is a 2015 Volvo XC60 which I love dearly. It's comfortable, sips diesel as if from a thimble and has a crystal clear and extremely powerful sound system. But when it comes to thrills n'spills it's only average.

I also have a motorcycle, a Triumph Street Triple, which I bought brand new in 2011 and which has 8,000 miles on the clock. 2,000 miles a year might not seem much but it isn't bad for a bike. I love the Triumph and ride it often, and it provides thrills n'spills in ample quantities.

But I'd been hankering for something else. I'd been hankering for a Porsche 911.

The 911 had always been my dream car. The object of my affection. My ultimate driving machine (to pinch a phrase from another of ze Germans). And 911s of the 90s era are seriously cheap.

You can bag a 996 911 for £8,000. Eight grand! That buys you a dark blue, rear engined speed machine with fried eggs for headlights, no glove box and an interior the colour of baby shit.

I wanted one. But then I remembered that 911s of that era come with a special engine that explodes itself to pieces unless you take it to a Porsche specialist and pay him many thousands of pounds to take the engine apart and build it as Porsche should have done in the first place.

So I didn't want a 911 any more.

And anyway my son said I was stupid if I didn't buy a Lotus Elise. He said the Elise is the best looking car ever made and that Lotus is the best car company ever. My son is 13 and when he was 11 he was driven round the Lotus test track at high speed in an Exige by a man called Darren, who is Lotus's senior engineer. He may be somewhat biased.

But he was right. I bought a Lotus Elise and it is the best car ever made.

The reasons for this are many but can be summarised in just one statistic. If you were to strap my motorcycle on to my Elise the combined weight of the resulting six wheeled monstrosity would be less than one single, measly Mazda MX5.

My 2002 Elise has the bog standard Rover K-Series 1.8 litre engine, manually winding windows, a passenger seat that is bolted to the floor and an accelerator pedal modelled on the head of a pin and as such it weighs 720kg.

The Street Triple weighs 160kg. A Mazda MX5 of any age weighs more than 1,000kg. Fat, lardy bastard thing.

A bog standard £8k Porsche 911 weighs 1,350kg. That's almost double what the Elise weighs.

This lack of weight is felt everywhere. For a start it is felt whilst sitting in it. It is felt in the extremely thinly cushioned seat, which adjusts about 4 inches backwards and forwards - and that's it.

The seat is supportive and lends itself well to spirited driving, which is something the Elise excels at. The cast aluminium Rover 4-pot chucks out a measly 115bhp but this is plenty enough as it hurls the Lotus from 0-60 in 5.6 seconds.

You need to be good at changing gear to match that though. The gearbox is the Elise's worst feature. It doesn't like being hurried. Get it right though and acceleration is supremely swift.

The driving position is snug. The car is essentially an aluminium bathtub chassis on to which a GRP body is glued. The chassis dictates everything about the shape of the car and where you fit in it. The sills are high and wide (which makes getting in and out comically difficult) and the footwell narrows to almost nothing where your feet should go.

You need to be friendly with your passenger as your elbows will overlap, and neither of you had better bring any luggage. The boot (behind the engine) is tiny and the storage space in the cabin pretty much non-existent.

The steering wheel doesn't adjust (did you really think it would?) but it, the pedals, the gearstick and the seat align themselves in such a way you wouldn't want to change any of them - unless you were quite tall or quite short in which case the Elise isn't the car for you. Go buy a lardy old Porsche, freak.

Fire up the engine and you realise it wasn't tuned to make a great noise. It's just there and sounds about as good as  the same unit in a Rover 45.

The first time you pull away you drive like an 89 year old with arthritic feet who's forgotten his glasses. The throttle needs a hefty push, the clutch bite point is hard to find.

Tune yourself to the car some more and getting away from the line becomes easier, but expect a degree of pogoing when in a traffic jam.

The steering has no assistance but doesn't feel like it needs any. The front tyres are quite narrow and did I mention how light the car is? The brakes don't have any assistance either, but you do sometimes wish they did.

Aside from pulling away from a standstill driving the Elise is a doddle - as long as you aren't an 89 year old with arthritis, or aren't freakishly tall or short. Or aren't too fat to fit in it.

The steering is light and wonderfully fluid. The Elise is legendary in this regard and with good reason. Quite simply it is sensational. You feel every undulation of the road yet the compliant suspension irons out irregularities. Darren did an amazing job when he engineered Mr Chapman's legacy.

The engine doesn't make much noise or power but it doesn't need to. The Elise is fast everywhere. Visibility is great and the controls are the most intuitive of any car I've ever driven.

The brakes are wonderfully competent and deliver great feel, although you need to push hard on the pedal to make them work. The discs are drilled and never give up their bite, even after many miles of hard driving.

The roof is a canvas affair that rolls up and lives in the boot when you're not using it. Putting it in place takes around 2 minutes. It is a bit of a pain in the arse. With the roof off the Elise feels light and airy and wonderful and lovely and fun. With the roof on the Elise feels very, very snug. Almost claustrophobic if you suffer from that kind of thing.

You remain dry until it rains. You'll stay dry if you drive at under 50mph. Above that and the roof's limitations are revealed. Water enters at the top of the windscreen - the traitorous roof lifts to expose your dry head - and proceeds to pelt you in the face with water at high speed. This is funny the first time it happens. After that you resolve not to drive your Lotus in the wet.

I bought my Lotus Elise as a plaything. I do drive it whenever I can. It is impractical but it has proved to be reliable. I have as much fun driving it as any car I've driven (quite a lot). I like it a lot and so would you if you bought one, and weren't built in such a way as you couldn't fit in it.

By Matt Hubbard

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2015 Vauxhall Insignia SRi 2.0 CDTi Review

Matt Hubbard drives the overly long named Vauxhall Insignia SRi VX-Line Nav 2.0CDTi 16v (140PS) ecoFLEX Start/Stop

The Vauxhall Insignia is not a bad looking car. It looks like a saloon but is actually a hatchback, albeit one you wouldn't want to consign your dog to travelling in the boot of. He wouldn't be able to see out.

The upside of that diminished practicality is that the Insignia's profile is a good one. Unfortunately the effect is spoiled somewhat when you look directly at the front or rear of the car and encounter the acres of chrome that embellishes it.

You may be a fan of chrome but I'm not so the sight of a fully chromed grille and chrome lines under the fog lights at the front and a big chrome strip at the rear tend to lead to chrome overkill.

Which is a shame because otherwise the Insignia is a perfectly reasonable car who's only other crime is its ubiquity. When you drive one you notice them everywhere.

The 19" wheels on the test car are standard fit and look pretty snazzy (if a little 'busy').

The Insignia is a long car and has a vast boot and rear seats with plenty of leg room. It uses the space well but a lack of a rear view camera or parking sensors make reverse parking a bit hairy - especially as the rear hatch window, when viewed in the rear view mirror, is tiny.

The interior is dark but tasteful. Buttons are few and well laid out and the overall design is easy on the eye with a single line that runs from each door and across the dash (similar to that in the Jaguar XJ). The dials and knobs feel quality and are simple to use, the screens are big enough and feature nice graphics and everything feels more refined and premium than you'd expect in a Vauxhall.

I shot a video the very first time I drove the Insignia and guessed the price would be edging towards £30k.  I was wrong, it costs £23k.

Once you study the specs and drive it for a few days you realise why it's not a £30k car, but the shortfalls between it and a Volvo S60 or Merc C-Class are not obviously apparent from behind the wheel.

It has leather seats that are comfortable and part electrically adjustable. It has sensibly placed and sized storage binnacles, USB points, Bluetooth, digital radio, satnav, cruise control and a screen in front of the the driver.

It's let down by confusing menus on both screens, a digital radio that is sometimes easy to tune but sometimes you cannot find the station you want and a satnav that is found wanting in terms of speed and ease of use. It defaults on top down 2D view and the 3D view just tilts the screen a bit. It doesn't have traffic and instead the traffic reports on the local radio station suddenly cut in on top of whatever you're listening to at maximum volume.

The steering feels good - it's predictable and precise - and the ride is both smooth and reasonably supportive when going round corners. Push hard round a fast bend and you can feel the edge of its limitations. The Insignia is no sports car but it is possible to drive it in a spirited manner and enjoy doing so.

Driving at night is aided by some super bright lights - that automatically come on as dusk arrives. The windscreen wipers aren't automatic though.

The engine is a modern 2-litre diesel that lacks in bhp but makes up for it in torque. Once you get above the point the turbo kicks in it will carry you along on a wave of grunt, which means you can be cack handed with the light and easy to use gearbox and still carry a decent turn of speed.

As with other saloon/hatchbacks in the sub-premium class the Insignia has a bit of an image problem (few will be bought as private purchases) but if you end up with one as a company car you'll not be disappointed when you drive it.

It is spacious, practical, drives well, efficient, costs little to run, has a good sound system and looks good but you will miss a reversing camera, a decent satnav and the image of other saloons. But if you  ignore the lack of a premium badge the Vauxhall Insignia SRi CDTi is a thoroughly good car.

Stats

Price - £23,204
Engine - 4-cylinder, 2.0, turbodiesel
Transmission - 6-speed manual
0-62mph - 10.5 seconds
Top Speed - 127mph
Power - 138bhp
Torque - 258lb ft
Economy - 76.3mpg
CO2 - 98g/km
Kerb Weight - 1,538kg

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