Subaru Justy

Our verdict

Otherwise known as the Daihatsu Sirion, and only a fraction less totally, totally boring. Look elsewhere

Comfort

A decent amount of room in the back seats – two adults should fit back there, but only if you don’t like them very much – but woeful bootspace.

Performance

Slow. There’s the choice of three petrol engines – a 1.0-, 1.3- and 1.5-litre - and you’ll want to steer of anything but the latter. The smallest engine is woefully, woefully slow while the 1.3 is only good for tooling around town.

Cool

We’ll give you a clue. It’s very much at one end of the Cool Wall. Can you guess which?

Quality

Cheap. Plastic. Grey. Not a lot to recommend here. The Justy does tend to be mechanically solid, at least.

Handling

Tall car on short wheelbase equals lots and lots of body roll. As you’d expect, there’s hardly prodigious grip either. Which could be fun, but isn’t. Rides bumps surprisingly well, though.

Practicality

Not bad, so long as you’re not considering putting anything larger than, say, a small apple in the boot.

Running costs

50-plus mpg motoring and Group 6 insurance is plenty respectable, but with so many good budget cars around nowadays, the Justy is just too pricey. It’ll shed value like, er, a boxy little city car, too.