Daihatsu Sirion

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Rating:
On the road price: £8,795 - £10,990
For : Spacious, well equipped, neat styling, economy
Against : Iffy interior plastics, noisy engines

Small cars are something of a Daihatsu speciality and the latest Sirion is perhaps their best example. Daihatsu is part owned by Toyota, so the Sirion benefits from underpinnings from the 2005 Toyota Yaris. This means it's slightly bigger than your average town car, but its snub nose and upright tailgate mean it's a cinch to squeeze into tight spaces around town. It also allows the Sirion to offer a huge amount of interior accommodation despite its relatively compact dimensions, front and rear passengers having plenty of leg and headroom. Equally impressive is the boot, which with the 60/40 split seats folded flat into the floor allows the Sirion to rival some larger estate cars.

It's a smartly styled interior, too. There's a neat instrument binnacle and loads of cubbies and storage space littered around the cabin, only the quality of some of the plastics letting it down slightly. Still, with prices starting so low it's difficult to criticise the interior materials too harshly, and it all feels well screwed together. On the road it's able rather than spectacular, with little steering feel and plenty of body roll. This does at least mean it's able to soothe out the worst bumps that our poorly surfaced roads offer. Neither the 1.0-litre or 1.3-litre engines are firecrackers, both offering adequate, if sometimes noisy performance. Buyers are likely to forgive it this though as either delivers tremendous economy and a specification that includes air conditioning, four electric windows and front and side airbags as standard from the base model up. That alone makes the Sirion an attractive buy, but factor in its good looks, spacious interior, excellent fuel economy and rounded ability and the Sirion makes a strong cases for itself against more familiar competition.