Yes another What car post!!!

Puntos are an outrageous bargain.

Depends on the bike, but Polo (or Ibiza...), or Leon spring to mind as reliable, safe, nice little easy drive hatches. Don't discount the Rover 200 / MGZR either. ZR probably looks nice enough for her, a ZR160 would be fast enough for you....

\-- Flippity Floppity Flip. The mouse on the Mobius strip. The strip revolved, the mouse dissolved in a chronodimensional slip.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

Skoda Fabia 1.4 16v. Should be able to get a nice one arround a 2k plate for £5000, maybe a little less. Might have aircon at that price. Those with Aicon have a nice cooled cubby hole mini glove box just inside the drivers door just the right size for a canned or small bottled drink, cooled by the Aircon.

Some have leccies, most with the comfort packs have central locking. They have 10 year anti corrosion, are built on VW floor pans and components. With the back seat down, you will get a bike in, especially if you take off the front wheel. Nice solid VW gearbox.

Bigger than Polo, but Smaller than a golf. Good choice of normal and Metallic colours, option of alloys. Magic black on a blackline LTD ed is very tasty. And they are a damned site cheaper than the equivalent Polo. And usually lower mileage too. Not quite the budget for the 1.9 TDi, or the TDi PD130 VRs yet though.

Surely ANYTHING made around 2000 and costing £5k, has leccy windows and central locking! Central locking FFS! I thought everything since about

Nah. She wants an Ibiza i reckon. Shes a girl so she'll want a nice interior. Not a skoda one.

A Corsa as much as i hate to say it is probly a reasonable bet. Or a Fiesta.

Personally, i'd say 206 GLX (aircon etc) but he said nothing French ;)

One assumes she doesn't care about handling etc so Corsa/Fiesta will be cheap to run/insure/fix and reasonably reliable. Polo should be tougher, but will cost a little more. Clio's are decent little cars, and look nice and girly :) The 1.2 16v Dynamique is the nicely specced one i think. But you don't want french :) Unfortunately she'll probly find one of the French ones most attractive ;)

In article , snipped-for-privacy@danontherunspam.com spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

Oh god no, she may be a girl but she will still want t to stay on the road. That knocks out the Corsa. And Fiestas rust. That will do her image the world of good.

Don't know how much cheaper than a polo an Ibiza is, the the interior layout of a fabia is a slightly plasticier version of that in the A4, right down to the basic speaker placement and stereo fitment. The Fabia is a nice little motor, which I find hard to say consider I hate everything that that VW have done to Skoda.

She does want a Focus - it's easily the best shopping-trolley car around at the moment, and it fits all your criteria. Take her for a test drive of one - I bet she'll really like it !

Hmmm, I had an Ibiza (VW) and I couldn't even fit a pushchair in the boot, never mind a bike :(

Oh, I agree if she tried it she would like it, but if she doesn't want one, a Fabia would be perfect.

I really wanted to hate the VW specced Skodas, for VWs revisionist hostory of skoda, and for the Skoda rally team having a German nationality (it's still a 40% owned Czech government company).

But the missus loves hers, she tried a clio, and a punto, and a fiesta, when she owned her Corsa, and the Fabia was better in her opinion than all of them.

Those 1.2 Clios are supposed to be bloody good on fuel as well, aren't they?

Peter

what bout a yaris? might JUST make that budget

In article , snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

More fool her. Missus traded her Corsa B for a Skoda Fabia, because it was a far better car in everyway. And she used to hate my old Skodas. Wouldn't drive them, and tried to avoid being seen in them. But one run in a metallic Nature green Fabia Classic (the most basic model 8v model) converted her.

You good lady would be overjoyed with a 16v comfort model. Missus regularly moanes about how some muppet got in her way at 95 on the way home.

Is that a proper bike in one lump or in two or more pieces? If you take the front wheel out a 26" racer will go in a Micra. If you don't want to do any disassembly you need something much bigger than a little hatchback, unless by bike you mean a kids BMX.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Fiesta isn't *too* bad, but the Corsa ?

ROFL !

Er, there's no such thing.

The Cup was the cheaper poverty-spec Clio 172, that Renault produced for people who are into trackdays and the like, and it was used in the Clio Cup race series.

There is no "Cup" version of the 182 - they're all full-spec. There is a Cup-Pack though, that has slightly different spoilers, and slightly lower suspension.

Seconded ! Never been in a Yaris, but they have a very good rep.

I have - the 1.0 is very very slow - to the point of being dangerous on the motorway. The 1.3 VVti is not bad at all, and start at about £4k, so that's an option. If you could find a 1.5T-sport, they're proper little crackers, and still manage over 40 mpg. I doubt you'll get one in budget.

The only time I've driven one hard on twisty roads, it was a 1.0, and it had insane lift-off oversteer, and I'm used to driving a 205! It may just have been that that particular model was a much-abused rental car with shafted suspension tho.

The 2000- corsa is actually not bad - the handling is vastly improved over the pre-2000 model, and the 1.2 16v is surprisingly nippy and will give you around 50mpg. You can pick up a 1.2 16V for under £4k. Of course, it's still nowhere near as good as the fiesta in the handling stakes, but it's slightly quicker and significantly more economical.