Volkswagen up!: best ultra-compact car

The Volkswagen Take up! is the best small city car around. Andrew Frankel explains why

Volkswagen Take up! 5-dr

This model from £9,010

If you can afford it and don’t need acres of space in the back, the VW up! (and its Skoda Citigo and SEAT Mii clones) is the best ultra-compact car you can buy. Not only does it tick all the most important first-car boxes by being dead easy to drive, even easier to park, dirt cheap to insure and run, and quite cool to look at, it brings a whole new dimension to the class we’ve not seen before.

For while it might look like a bargain-basement product, it feels nothing like one. Indeed, the quality of the interior, comfort of the ride and refinement at motorway speed make the up! feel more like a shrunken Golf than a car designed to be as cheap as possible. In its size category and for now at least, nothing else comes close.