Proton Savvy   Women's view

Heres A Really Cheap Car That, Well, Doesnt Feel Like One. June Neary Checks Out Protons Little Savvy

Ive always fancied a Lotus and something tells me that Protons Savvy is about as close as Im going to get to it. Proton, for anyone who doesnt know (and theres no reason why you should) owns Lotus and uses the Hethel companys engineers to develop its Malaysian products. That doesnt mean a line-up of practical family cars that handle like sportsters but it does mean that you might be surprised at how well the companys cars drive. I was.

The Savvy is the smallest model Proton has yet produced, competing in the growing Citycar sector popularised by rivals like Fords Ka and more lately by newer models like Volkswagens Fox.. It undercuts both on price and on road manners and looks quite sassy too. So far, so good.

I thought the Savvy a neatly proportioned car, measuring as it does 3710mm in length. To put that into perspective, this compares with 3456mm for the Citroen C1 and 3495mm for the Kia Picanto, both key competitors, so the Proton is slightly bigger than the city car norm, coming half way between these tots and the 3917mm of a supermini like a Ford Fiesta. This in my view is precisely the sort of size a car of this kind should be. It means, for example, that access to the back through the rear doors isnt as cramped as in certain Citycars, helped in no small part by a generously stretched wheel at each corner stance.

I did think however, that Proton might have made the car a little wider, an area where it loses out to rivals like the C1. You certainly wouldnt want to sit three adults across the back. But then when would you want to do that in a Citycar anyway? The interior is better than the usual stuff you tend to get in cheap Far Eastern cars. Practical but predictable touches include cup holders next to the hand brake and a rear bench that splits 50:50 to reveal a reasonably spacious luggage bay. Theres not much colour choice though: just three hues are offered, Stratos (metallic blue), Midnight (metallic black) and Magma, (solid chilli red). Everybodys got their own ideas on exterior styling but for what its worth, I thought that of the Savvy to be pretty sharp. Look around the car and there are some careful detail touches. The neatly styled front lamp clusters for example - and the tidy way the rear wiper has been integrated.

The V-shaped indent on the tailgate corresponds to the front grille, although the body-coloured grille works a lot better in black than it does in red.

The only engine on offer is a punchy 1.2-litre petrol unit good for a reasonable 74bhp. Proton arent into diesels but you wouldnt anyway find much point in paying the usual premium for one in a car of this kind likely to travel short urban distances. Rest to 60mph occupies 12.

2 seconds quite a bit more rapid than I was expecting for a car of this type, as was the 106mph top speed. Cars of this kind have come a long way since the only thing you could reasonably do in them was go to the shops. Credit for the handling is duly passed on to Lotus. They have engineered a completely new and very strong rigid chassis (platform) and ensured a good power to weight ratio.

As a result, Proton has a powerful and enjoyable small package. Whether its stronger than the German and Italian marques that the Malaysians benchmarked it against is another question altogether.

From around £6,000, the Savvy undercuts some of its rivals by quite a significant amount. There are other cheapies at about this kind of figure by you really have to compromise to own one. The Proton, on the other hand, was the first really cheap car I had tried that really didnt feel that cheap. As youd expect, insurance is cheap, emissions low and fuel consumption impressive (youll average over 50mpg and there arent too many petrol-powered cars that can do that.

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If youd asked me before this test, Id have hesitated on this one. As it is, I can give an unqualified yes if my need was simply for an inexpensive urban runabout.