“Under the radar cars” for young drivers…

[T5GRF]

My daughter will be learning to drive fairly soon. She’s inherited some of my passion for cars and I’d like to try and help her find something interesting to drive that we could actually afford to insure.
So given a budget of say £6-£7k for the car and around £1-1.5k for insurance what potential left field choices might be affordable to insure and fun to drive. Anything considered apart from large saloon cars.
Lastly any recommendation for reasonable newly passed drivers car insurance providers or search engines for quotes?

[T5GRF]

Thanks for most of the input, as ever on Pistonheads these days it doesn’t take too long for things to go a little strange…
Electric cars are no doubt a vehicle type sadly my daughter will have the “pleasure” of driving for many years in her future, for now I’d like her to experience some interesting petrol engined vehicles.
When I was a little older than she is now there were often some relative insurance bargains to be had and still be able to enjoy something fun. For example a 309GTI was significantly cheaper to insure than its more desirable 205 cousin.
Some form of hatch is what she’d like - at the moment an Alfa Mito is on the list of potentials.