Fiat 500: The brilliant small car I completely forgot about

WORD reaches me from north of the border that my sister’s looking to treat herself to a festive gift of the four-wheeled variety

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It’s a straightforward enough challenge; she’s looking for something small, good looking, reliable and easy to run, for around the four grand mark. Not that she’s going to take any advice off her car nut brother – it’s Life On Cars tradition that whenever someone actually asks me for advice on cars, they listen dutifully to whatever considered opinion I can come up with, pause reflectively for a moment, and then ignore it and buy the car they had their heart set on anyway. This explains why so many people I know own a Vauxhall Corsa.

Then again, my suggestions were slightly more sensible than my sister’s other half’s, who being even more of a petrolhead than I am pointed me in the direction of a Lancia Beta Spider (Google it) which could be under your Christmas tree for just £1,650. A beautiful Italian roadster which would be fine for a classic car bore like me, but hardly the sort of thing you’d rely on to get you in and out of Glasgow on a daily basis!

Trying to keep things as sensible as possible, I went for the original Ford Ka, Toyota’s Aygo, the Citroen C1 and – whisper it softly – the new MINI, with the Peugeot 106 GTi as the wildcard I secretly hoped my sister would go for.  All of which are reliable enough to survive life tooling around a city centre for days on end, small enough to squeeze into even the tightest parking spaces and – most importantly for my sister, someone who’s far more stylish than I am – blessed with the sort of chic and sense of fun that, say, a Nissan Micra just isn’t.

I was quietly pleased with my carefully selected shortlist, right up until the point when my sister mentioned the one small car I’d forgotten about; the Fiat 500. Her argument is that it’s far cuter than just about any other small car on the second-hand market (as long as it’s bought in the right colour), it’s got perfectly good underpinnings (which is true, given it’s a former European Car of the Year), and there’s enough of them around for her to pick up a decent one. For what it’s worth, I think the mechanically identical Panda is the better small Fiat, but for what my sister wants the 500’s perfect. I’m just annoyed I didn’t think of it earlier.

To be fair, I agree with her. If you can think of a better suggestion, feel free to send them in to the usual Champion address. Although – in true Life On Cars tradition – she’ll only ignore it anyway. Merry Christmas.

Fire up the... Peugeot 208

PEUGEOT'S back on the ball, if the new 208 is anything to go by.

The French firm's built up a fine reputation for building feisty hatchbacks with a sense of fun - as anyone familiar with the 205, 306 and 106 will surely testify - but to my mind at least the more recent models, particularly the 207, never really caught the imagination in the same way. Deep down, I reckon that's why Peugeot's pulled out all the stops to get it right with its latest supermini contender.

For starters, it looks good, with a sharply-sculpted shape and carefully chosen proportions which at a stroke render the old 207 a bit blobby and comparision. It's the same story on the inside too, with interior fabrics and plastics which owe plenty to its big brother, the 508 saloon. The main thing which strikes you is the unusual way the controls are laid out - you look over the steering wheel to see the dials, rather than through it - but it's as intuitive as it is innovative. Same story goes for the tablet-style computer sitting atop the centre console, although I suspect having an actual iPad dock there instead might have been a smarter move.

But the best thing about the 208 by far is the way it drives. You'd expect that the 1.6 Feline version I tried wouldn't be lacking in pace - at £16,895, it's holding the warm hatch fort until the eagerly-anticipated GTi version arrives - but where it really shines is in the fluidity of its handling and in its natural agility in the sort of low-speed urban darting in and around town.

For the past three years I've always argued the Fiesta is the best of the superminis but the 208 is now a better looking, more entertaining and technologically superior package to Ford's finest. After a couple of years in the hatchback wilderness, Peugeot's got its mojo back and produced one of the best cars I've driven all year.

Now all they need is for the 208 GTi to be an absolute belter.