Ok, I'm just waiting for the lease company to come back to me with a quote, but I think I've narrowed my next choice of car down to one of these two:
Vauxhall Astra 5 door SRi 2.0 turbo (197bhp version) with exterior pack or MINI Cooper S (with aircon, stripes and chequered roof lol)
The Astra will be more comfortable on motorway cruises, more practical with it's 5 doors for loading my son in and out of. Decent performance figures, but heavier than the MINI on tax. Better boot for pushchair etc, and a decent load space with the seats folded if I need to carry work-related boxes of stuff to jobs.
The MINI is perhaps cooler than the Astra, similar 0-60 times (on paper), probably handles better but suffers from lower top speed than the Astra (when will I use it?) and lots of dickheads have them.
The MINI won't be as helpful for getting the lad in and out of, and I'm not sure on boot space for the stuff that goes with him. I've driven the car a couple of years ago but only on a race track, and didn't really look in the boot... I'm gonna have a 'proper' look tomorrow to see whether it suits my needs (and in my cargo shorts, to see whether scruffyish bloke with leg tattoos puts off the sales people...)
So what do you reckon? I'm also waiting on a quote for a Skoda Octavia vRS, but they're not as quick and my other half isn't quite as keen on them.