Mazda2: month 1

Arrived: Dec 2007
List price (including options): £11,799
Average economy: 36.5mpg

The Mazda2 has been -

All over the place over the Christmas holidays, doing the duty of ferrying myself and family and friends between parties, get-togethers and the like. The odd motorway journey aside the 2's mostly been busy pounding the city streets, which is exactly what it's designed for. And it's been great, the engine's willing performance giving it surprising pace when the traffic lights turn green and there's another bendy bus to overtake. Its small dimensions mean finding a space to park it isn't too tricky either, and visibility is decent enough all round to make getting it into tricky spaces a cinch.

We're loving the -

Novelty of such a new model. Driving the 2 around London at the moment is something of an exclusive experience as I rarely see another. That can't last too long though, as the 2's a smart little car that's perfect around town. Sport trim means we've got large car-rivalling specification. There's the fantastic automatic headlamps and auto wipers - more of which later - and racier looks due to the bigger alloys and subtle sporting styling touches. Really, I think it's one of the smartest superminis out there at the moment, and fitted with the 1.5-litre engine it feels rapid enough for those longer motorway trips that any car will inevitably take.

But not so impressed by -

Automatic windscreen wipers are all well and good but on the 2 they seem to ignore the horrible light drizzle that's a fact of life during the UK's wintertime. More wiper woe is apparent around the rear, where the small wiper struggles to completely clear the window. It's one of those things that I only notice occasionally though, and next time it happens I'll be sure to see if I can tweak the wiper blade to allow it to work better. Decent as the engine's performance is the trip computer is showing an average of around 36.5mpg. That's not brilliant for such a small, light car. I think I need to do some proper calculations by brimming it to see if the trip computer is wrong - or I need to be a bit more gentle with my right foot!

We're looking forward to -

Finding the button on the radio that switches off the traffic alerts. I'm always driving when it happens and forget to check and switch it off when stopped. With the holidays over it'll be just me in it more often and it'll go back to the usual routine of shorter runs during the week, and longer trips at the weekend to see friends. I'm hoping too that fuel prices take a dive, as the 2's not been quite as economical as I'd expected, though a few longer trips will undoubtedly help lift that average.

Georgio Sfakiotakis