Size matters

Feisty. And actually, very good.

I don’t really have anything against small cars. Super-minis. City cars.

They’re often pretty funky, and they certainly serve a purpose. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly hip young urbanites, largely much prettier than I am, seem to rather like them too, so who’m I to say otherwise.

It’s just that, well, they really don’t do the job, as a car, that I usually like a car to do.

That, primarily, is to go fast, grip hard, and generally hooligan about. No, they’re more like scooters on four wheels really, they tend to zip about (minus most of the zip) efficiently looking cool and getting people where they need to go through trafficked streets in their own, unique, friendly chic.

So usually when I get behind the wheels of one of these, I’m not likely to have a very good time. So when the Renault Twingo was delivered, I didn’t immediately dash for the keys, and it was only the next afternoon that I did get around to it.

Even then, my first stint was as a passenger, Steve and I comically pedalling about Sandton in it for a few hours before grinding home in 5:30 Jo’Burg traffic in the little sewing machine. From the left-hand seat, it felt a bit like my prejudiced mind had already decided it would, not lacking in any particular area so much as just not really making an impact at all – the ride was pretty good, the cabin actually nicely built and therefore decently insulated against road noise, the engine not suitably anodyne, and the interior barely-restrained funkiness itself. It even seemed made out of decent materials all-round.

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