Top Gear’s Top 9: sensible first cars

We’re trying to be semi-sensible here, okay. We’re not going to disappear down Top Gear Silliness Street, pretending that a Dodge Viper is a great first car because its 8.4-litre V10 has loads of torque, so it won’t stall when you try to set off. In fifth gear. With the handbrake on. Come on, we’ve all done it. No? Just us? Oh.

So, a sensible first car suggestion from Top Gear. That’ll be our favourite small car – and all of Britain’s actually. The Ford Fiesta. Not the ST, sadly – for an ex-L-plater, that’s so uninsurable it might as well be a LaFerrari. No, we’ll settle for the humble 84bhp EcoBoost, with big squidgy tyres which ooze through potholes. Such a great chassis, this one. And at long last, a decent interior. 

The oft-forgotten Ibiza is a cruelly underrated car. It’s basically a better-looking VW Polo with a lower-rent interior, and drives very nearly as sweetly as the class-topping Ford. Its superpower is that it’s quite big, for a small car, and Seat’s eked out massive interior space, so it feels as roomy as a Leon inside. It’s the best small car if you have friends.

Look, we made it through two options before we started having a bit of fun. And the Jimny isn’t as impractical for this task as you might think. With only 99hp and a 0-62mph trundle taking more than 12 seconds. The chances of going fast enough to experience a serious loss of control are minimal. 

And along the way, you’ll learn how to manage haphazard steering, wayward handling, and finesse a long-winded gearchange. All very useful skills to have in the locker.

Good news indeed. The Sandero remains the cheapest new car for sale in the UK – it’s yours from £6,995. For most of us, having a brand-new car as our first wheels is a pipe dream, but if not, the most likely candidate is the new car that costs the least money…

The teeniest Skoda remains a top choice – comically easy to park, and ludicrously over-engineered because VW couldn’t help but massively overspend on making the Up and its brethren better than the Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and all the other greeny-brown mush of entry-level city cars. The Citigo takes the Up and garnishes it with the reverse-snobbery of the Czech badge, and as a result, you’re more likely to score a discount before you sign on the line.

Another forgotten hero of the supermini set here, which buys the Mazda 2 something which no Polo, Clio or Fiesta can boast: rarity factor. It’s also usually cheap to insure for a grown-up supermini (partly because it does without turbocharged engines, so it’s not that powerful, or very fast). This also means that it has eminently realistic fuel economy, and the engine responds gamely to keep up with the chuckable chassis. It’s a good little car, the 2. But of course it would be. Because Mazda is the only ‘normal’ carmaker in the world that doesn’t make a bad car. Fight us.

According to people more maturity-literate than us, the Skoda Fabia is now Britain’s cheapest car to insure, coming in at around £430 a year fully comp on average. And when you think about it, this makes perfect sense. The Fabia isn’t fast, nor is it enormously gigglesome to drive.

This means you rarely see one being driven recklessly. It’s also basically a last-gen VW Polo with an angular face and tinnier trim, which means it’s bought by sensibly minded folk who don’t mind a bit of hard plastic and some extra change in their pocket. So, sensible people, not driving very fast. Hardly a big accident candidate. And as a result, easier to insure than a pair of scissors.

Seven-year warranty. Seven years! Come on. Get your monied-up baby-boomer grandparents to buy it, let them take the depreciation hit, then have it off ‘em in five years’ time, safe in the knowledge that there’s another two years of fuss-free motoring ahead. Just try to break it. Try. We dare you.

No, really. Because the 3-Wheeler is basically a one-hundred-year-old car that’s being made brand new, it qualifies for classic car insurance.

Which, being designed for cars which are often meticulously maintained and don’t do many miles, can be usefully cheaper than ‘normal’ car insurance. So, wrap up warm and pop your L-plates on this. Now that’s consumer advice. Thank us later.