A grand doesn't sound like much but it's another third on top of my already stretched budget.

I think the Puma has a little bit more of the price to come off still, but I reckon 205,306,Golf Mk2 will be hard to lose money on if you buy a clean one.

are panda 100hps that cheap yet?

mini cooper s is in budget. Would appear to tick all the boxes

Panda 100hp out of budget, didn't realise Cooper Ss were in budget, but would be scraping the barrel, and I'm not much of a fan anyway, have driven a couple, and I didn't see what all the fuss about the handling was about.

No it isn't. You just need to know how to drive it.

Lift off oversteer and power understeer.

Precisely. All you can do when accelerating out of a corner in a FWD car is choose how much understeer you want, which isn't what I want in a driver focused car.

you've obviously never driven a well engineered, well set up FWD car with a good chassis have you? If you feel you have, please let us know! Because there a LOTS of fabulous cars that have been produced over the years that match the above.

How did they do this - I find it strange that would say these are the only very specific 2 cars they will insure you on? I can’t see many of the other suggestions being much more to insure? But regardless…

Of them 2 I would go for the Golf. I have owned both in the past and liked them both equally - but finding a decent 205 GTi 1.6 with anything near the power it made when new, is extremely hard.

I was going to buy one again just under 2 years ago [205 GTi 1.6] , it was a really good car, semi restored [ie lots and lots new parts] - but I took it for a test drive it was dog slow, pure crap engine and not what I remembered my last one to be [though in fairness it was slightly tuned] but this felt far slower than my pre tuned car. And this was a well maintained car with massive history. I would want a one with a mi16 engine, or GTI6 engine etc, as the std 1.6 is just too slow, esp. if you are coming from a GTi6. Stick a Gti6 engine and gearbox in one and don’t tell the insurance company - I know you are supposed to and its illegal etc but if it was me I would lie to them, the robbing cnts. I have paid thousands to insurance companies for car insurance over the year and as I never had an accident or claim – I just gave them lots of money. So my thousands bought me peace of mind a some bits of paper

BMW Compact? For that money you could get either a very clean e36 318ti Sport - which will probably appreciate in value if well-kept as they are getting quite rare already - or if you fancy something a bit more refined and better for long m-way trips you could get a less minty e46 325ti. I ran a 318ti Sport for two years and found it a joyous experience in the main. Car loved thrashing the pants out of A and B roads... Was good on the motorway too but nearly 4.5krpm @ 130kph with a stainless cat back could get a bit much after four hours.

Personally I have never ran over a bus queue nor do I plan to in the near future - maybe this is something you regularly do as you brought it up? If this is the case you should be sent to jail immediately as a preemptive measure to save lives

If you were stupid/incompetent/useless enough of a driver to 'run over a bus queue' - and I assume you are talking multiple casualties here [you made up a redicilous hypothetical situation so I will expand it in an equally ridiculous manner] we'll say 6 killed inc a blind OAP with a guide dog and a 3 year old child - then it wouldn’t really matter if your 205 GTi had a 1.6 engine or a 2.0 engine. You would most likely go to jail for being a complete physco and running over a bus queue and being done for dangerous or wreckless driving. Probably being drunk, on drugs or being a blatant indiscriminate bus queue massacrer. Then it wouldn’t really matter if your 205 has 400 extra cc's and your insurance was invalid, you might get an extra 6 months but you be in jail for 20 years so it probably wouldn’t matter anyway

As FYI all my cars are insured correctly and I never lied once. Well, actually I have to admit only once I didn’t tell them something as I omitted to tell then the 205 I had was mildly tuned [cam, manifold, mapped and set up on RR] and I didn’t tell them this as in the event of me having an accident - which I never did [nor did I run over any bus queues] - I would doubt the would take the engine apart and check if the cam is original if it was a minor accident as the car looked totally standard even under the bonnet and was only mildly uprated.

You are probably one of these people who rings up the insurance company to tell them you fitted sheepskin sheep covers on your seats incase it would affect you insurance, just to keep every 100% kosher

FYI I do get your point and know you should tell the insurance company and it is illegal [as I said in previous post] and with an engine swap this might be advised, but in the position [which I am not in] I don’t know if I would tell them, hard to know. But to re-iterate I will not be running over any bus queues regardless

I also doubt every person who has a diesel remapped – I have a diesel but it isn’t mapped though I know loads of people who have – then they should tell the insurance company but I bet none [or next to none] of them did. Same with 99% of people with mapped cars I would presume. All law breakers and should be sent to jail. And rightly so [to coin a phrase]