Volkswagen Lupo, Not so loopy

The VW Lupo remains the perfect way of getting plenty of badge prestige for little money, despite being an obvious platform sharing exercise with sister car the SEAT Arosa. It was replaced by the Fox, which despite being bigger and more refined, arguably dispensed with all the cute character than made the Lupo so appealing. It was conceived as a littler version of the ever-bloating Polo, and while it doesn't quite have the quality we expect of a VW it is of course built to last. And the 1.6-litre GTI is a proper pocket rocket.

Obviously it's not on sale new any more, but having been discontinued in 2005 there are plenty of decent examples to be had for well under our £4,000 budget. It's a VW, so residuals are solid which means that a decent GTI version is still out of our budget, believe it or not. So, we'd opt for a late 1.4-litre in Sport guise, which cost £10,500 when new and comes with alloy wheels, front fog lights and a cool central tailpipe. The 100bhp engine gets the car to 60mph in ten seconds exactly, but it's so small and low that things feel altogether faster from the inside - and that's what really matters.

Mark Nichol