City car test

It was a city car test that delivered by far the biggest shock of January: Ford’s Ka wasn’t the instant winner that we were expecting. While it shares most of its parts and underpinnings with Fiat’s 500, the one thing the blue oval model hadn’t carried over was the Italian car’s charm.

That’s why the Ka managed only second place in this test, followed by the chunky Volkswagen Fox and the budget-priced Renault Twingo. This outcome provided early evidence that 2009 was set to hold plenty of road test surprises…