I purchased a Citroen C1 as my previous car, a Vauxhall Tigra, was eating up too much fuel. The C1 certainly uses less petrol than a Tigra, so in a nutshell does what I bought it for.

The C1 is quirky with a very polished design, and the best looking of the 106 the C1 and the Aygo (all the same car believe it or not).

The car itself is very nice to drive. it is reminiscent of the tiny hatchbacks of old: nippy, quick steering, close to the ground little things which were fun to drive. The seats in mine are bucket seats (extra) which are very comfortable. Please do not get the normal seats, they are terrible. You do yearn for more power, but if you are considering buying this car you are already prepared to make this compromise.

If you drive this car properly, economically (slowly with little revs) then you will save a bundle. With £15 (£0 on never models) road tax you can't go wrong. Insurance is decent too; with two sub 25 drivers we pay around £800 - bear in mind one has not been driving for even a year yet. Driving on motorways is a different story. At 70mph the C1 revs at 3500. At 80, this is much increased. As I said, you MUST drive this car economically if you are buying it to save money, as 'razzing it' down the motorway at a ton will shake it to pieces, literally, and will cost you much more than you would expect in petrol too. Ideally you would want to go about 60-65 on the motorway. You won't, but you should! As an aside, this car is the easiest car to stall I have ever driven. I still stall it occasionally, usually on hills. This is probably just because it is a very low powered car and I am used to driving a 1.8 petrol Tigra.

I have been fairly disappointed with the interior decor. I bought a few extras with the car - a glovebox, parcel shelf and chrome finishes. "A glovebox?!" I hear you cry, that is not an extra, surely? Yes, unfortunately quite a lot of basic items are extras on this car and again, unfortunately, they aren't very good. The glovebox (£35) is broken already and the parcel shelf constantly falls off it's hinges when putting shopping in the boot. Another niggle is the stereo - briefly, the sound quality is very poor as are the speakers. Small niggles, but niggles nontheless - these affect my everyday driving of the car, and every day it annoys me.

One worry you may have is the size of the car. I wouldn't' worry too much about that - the boot is of a surprising size and normal sized passengers in the back have enough room to sit comfortably. Beware - if you have shopping in the back with 3 passengers, you will be travelling home slowly.

All in all this car does what it says on the tin IF you drive it correctly, with a tardis like amount of space inside. It is very easy to park, but I would say that the view is slightly obstructed by the front pillars, especially on the drivers side. Rear visibility is quite good however.

I like this car -- for my purposes it is perfect. If I have children, I will probably get rid of it as it would be too awkward to get a child in and out of the back seats with it being a 3-door.