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 !!
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
Hot Bodies Lightning 2 Pro carbon, Mega 22/30/2, MMM, 4s3-5Ah.
Tamiya F201 carbon, Mamba 7700, MM, 2s A123 2.3ah.
Xray XT8, 1518, MMM, 4s5Ah.
Lots of boats. fastelectrics.net
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...