Until recently, Australians shopping for a new city car on a budget wouldn’t have even bothered kicking tyres in a European brand’s showroom. Light Euro tikes have typically been prohibitively expensive to purchase and frightfully costly to service, making their Japanese or South Korean counterparts the default choice...
Comparing old with new might seem like an unfair comparison because, with few exceptions, new models are bigger, safer, more refined and more economical, often quicker, too. All of which might leave an earlier iteration without a hope. However, the flipside is that previous models are smaller and rawer, which are negatives if you’re talking about a Corolla, but can be desirable qualities in the rarefied realm of high-performance icons...
This time last year driving enthusiasts with less than $30,000 to spend on a new hot-hatch had a single option: the Volkswagen Polo GTI. Okay, technically they could also pick its near-twin, the Skoda Fabia RS, but the sales charts show they didn’t. Meanwhile the Suzuki Swift Sport simply isn’t high enough on the Peri-Peri heat scale to compete...
