1st Car
 

Next year I'll be turning 17 so I've started searching around for a car for myself already, maybe a project that'll be ready for when I get my license. Anyway after a little bit of searching I found that there are plenty of great cars I can afford but the insurance sometimes breaches the £10,000 mark! So I wondered if anyone had any advice on a car that'll be relatively cheap to buy and insure but also fun to drive? Any help and advice as always will be appreciated, thanks :mdr:

Subaru Impreza

Neil may be better informed to answer but...

The UK has different insurance laws to most other countries, if you start researching insurance costs that will likely give you a range of cars to consider. Here's the first page from a Google serch http://www.carpages.co.uk/car-insurance/

I remember TG doing a similar exercise & I think they found a Volvo estate was the best deal??

I've always liked Subarus. They last a long time, well built, not expensive, and important to me, all wheel drive. I live in a snowy area.
Not sure what you would really need in the UK though, never been. :) Good luck!

I could afford a Scooby easy its just the insurance for a 17yr old would be upwards of £20,000 I'm guessing which is way too much... PBO yes TG did do a "best car for 17yo challenge" but I think it was more of a joke than anything else :lol:

have you looked into get traders insurance

Honestly with UK insurance buy a basic car which is cheao to repair - civic or such - With no driving hstory your basically screwed. Normal approach is to use parents insurance policy with you as a named driver until you get to 21.

Arct1k my parents are very reluctant to let me drive on their policy in case I screw up their no claims... Can you explain traders insurance? I haven't heard about that?

Sorry that link doesn't work it just takes me to Google...

Just buy a cheap car. I've got a Daewoo Matiz with v low miles (approx 15k) stuck in a garage at my folks place I'd sell or even trade for rc stuff.

The classic; A Citroen Saxo mkII 1.6 VTS. Should be relatively cheap and if you can find one in great condition it's a terrific little car. SO MUCH fun to drive and with around ~100bhp and low weight it can move too. If you lower it and buy some nice wheels (like 16" oz superturismo) it's a true little racer. :o)

Was my first car and I still miss it from time to time:

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...578_2573_n.jpg

Found quite a nice saxo vtr for £795 and the insurance is still £2000+ haha still, its heading in the right direction at least :party:!!

Make sure it's a mrk II.

I even installed a Saxo Cup short shift gear shift, a Saxo Cup carbon air intake and a very nice Remus exhaust. There are so many things you can do with the Saxo and it's an easy car to work on.

Saxos are a no no for insurance here, i have a 17 year old mate that wanted one but ended up with a 106 as even though there the same car more twats crash saxos, £2000 is a very good price indeed for a VTR, I assume that is with a black box fitted, my buddy is paying around £1300 for a £500 106 1.1 with black box fitted, think he said it was near 2k without. if you want something fast and insurable or cheap to insure even without speed it pretty much has to be something uncool apart from the original Mini, but they cost a fair whack to buy these days. if I was 17 i'd be looking at Skoda/volvo for a bit of speed, or kia/hyundai for cheap a-b transport.

I found a decent mini for about £1000 but the insurance was still £3000! I think a Saxo looks like a good option but I'll just have to keep looking around and see what I can get out of my parents :lol:!!

Is that for a 1275cc clubman? I assume that due to the ow purchase price of the unloved clubman front end, I was naughty once and when I got my licence back I went for a classic 998cc which was right up there with the cheapest I could get.

I found this on an insurance company's website, it might be of help.
Here is the list of cars, you’ll notice that almost all of them are low powered 1 litre engines – if you go for a more powerful car too soon, your premium will accelerate faster than your car, for example, if that Renault 5 at number nine were the turbo version, the premium for a bloke would be £4,000, so watch out. All the quotes below are for Third Party Fire & Theft Cover for a 17 year old driver living in a moderate-to-low risk area and assume the car is valued at less than £5,000.


Car model / engine size Male Female
Volkswagen Beetle (old shape, up to 1600cc) 1200 1070
Peugeot 107 1.0 1500 1155
Vauxhall Corsa 1000cc 1525 1170
Peugeot 106 1000cc 1525 1170
Fiat Panda 1000cc 1525 1170
Austin Mini 1000cc 1525 1170
Fiat Uno 1000cc 1525 1170
Peugeot 205 950cc 1525 1170
Renault 5 1000cc 1525 1170
Vauxhall Agila 1000cc 1525 1170
Citroen 2CV 602cc 1525 1170
Hyundai Atoz 1.0 1525 1170
Citroen C1 1.0 1790 1300
Daihatsu Sirion 1.0 1790 1300
Citroen Ax 1000cc 1800 1350
Seat Marbella 850cc 1800 1350
Chevrolet Matiz 800cc 1800 1350
Toyota Aygo 1.0 1825 1375
Suzuki Alto 1.0 1825 1375
Fiat Seicento 900cc 1825 1375
Daihatsu Charade 1.0 2100 1600

It was the 1275 cooper :) what insurer/website was that? Do you have a link? Those prices seem very attractive!!

A decent looking cooper for a grand, either the seller is a very good friend/close family, or there is hidden gremlins there.

It was from Adrian Flux, didn't keep the link but it didn't take much googling to find.

The body work needed some work and it needed a new battery and things like that but I figured I could have it pretty neat by the time I passed my test...