Wanted : Little car for a big bloke

[julianm]

Starting the hunt for a cheap to run city/micra type car for my son - 6` 5" & 16 st. Hopefully somethin 2001-5 within the £35 tax bracket.
Pretty difficult to judge how roomy in practice from the spec - how about a Panda?
Any experience welcome. Thanks in advance.

[richcorsavxr]

my mate has a pug 107 xs sport (which is a 1 litre car with go faster stripe going through the middle and a centre exhaust and has a whole 8bhp than a standard 107) and still in the £35 bracket he's about the same size as your son, and shouldn't be to expensive to buy i don't think

[paintman]

My eldest is 6'7.
Started driving at 17 in a Metro, followed up with a Pug 205 then a Pug 306.
Bets bet is to go round a few used car lots & sit him in a few!

[anonymous-user]

Panda was my first thought as well. Honda Jazz seems to have lots of headroom, how about one of them?

[Big_Dog]

There's an amazing amount of space in a Smart. Well worth checking out. He will probably need to mod the rear view mirror though.

[Tangent Police]

Classic mini.

Hold value/Increase in value.

Accomodate monsters.

Cheap to insure/run/fix

Are great to drive.

I'm 6ft 4 and could easily be 6ft 8+ in the mini and not have my head touch the ceiling.


Engine's in the wrong place,
Wheels are too small,
They fold up in crashes.

[Prasius]

Another vote for the smart - I've owned the older 600cc smart, and currently a smart roady as a second car. One of the first things anyone says when first getting in a 'normal' smart is "wow, there's lots of room in here!".

If you look for a Pure or Pulse coupe you should be within the £35 tax bracket - the top spec Passion models are usually pushed in to a higher category even though they share the same engine. Only thing I'd warn of is that the 600cc cars tend to start using increasing amounts of oil from 45k miles - often at around 60k the little highly strung engines tend to need between £700 and £1000 on a rebuild (depending on if you change things like water pumps etc as well) - although plenty of engines go for considerably longer than that, just something to be aware of.

I know there is a certain image issue with smarts - but most owners genuinely think they're great even with a pretty honest view of their faults.

Edited by Prasius on Thursday 29th April 22:02

[defblade]

Lots of room in an Aygo for me - 6' 4".

If you're looking sports cars, my advice is see if they're strict 2 seaters or if it's trying to pretend it's a 2+2. There's usually enough room in the first variety, but not in the second.

[BigBen]

I am 6"6 and learned in a Metro without too much bother also had a Corsa which was better. Newer cars should be better as NCAP rating dictates that having a seat that goes back a long way is almost a must.

Ben

[missdiane]

Reminded me of this

[moleamol]

julianm said:

how about a Panda?
Any experience welcome. Thanks in advance.

Had a Panda 1.2 when I was in Spain for a couple of weeks. Very roomy and absolutely brilliant around town and up all the tiny roads leading to our villa. Not amazing on a fairly empty motorway for an hour when I went to pick up a friend joining me from the airport. My brother in law had a Focus C-max which I was insured on, better on the motorway but awful compared to the Panda zipping around town and tiny/steep winding roads.

I'd definitely recommend one if you're not constantly trying to rack up motorway mileage. Here is the beast in question: