Yet another car itch – tiny nippy car (Up! Gti)…

I like small nippy, quick-ish, nimble cars – my current ’07 Civic Type R is at the stage where things are going wrong more frequently (enough for a trip to the garage every couple of months). And rust is creeping in – 90% sure rear subframe will go this year and that’s best part of £1000 on it’s own.

Now I quite fancy an UP! Gti! 🙂

Gets me in a much newer car and I’d treat it as a two seater. Just wondered if anyone had owned one and what they thought about it.

Most of my trips are local, but there’d be the odd 4-5 hour run to see relatives so are they OK on a motorway run?

They just look fun in a feel like you’re doing 90mph but at 50mph kind of way.

I had one for a day as a courtesy car and was surprisingly impressed just as a nippy little thing.

Usual response would be MX5

Small cars are fun to drive at slow speeds, less so at 70. We’ve a 60 2010 Aygo we bought for the ‘kids’ a couple of years ago. It’s only 68hp, but it’s nippy to 50 as it weighs nothing. OK on motorway but it’s nothing like wafting along in a bigger car.

You’ll still likely be down on power from a Type R, and an Up is significantly smaller. Would be more fun round town at legal speed limits though.

I like the idea of one – small nippy, quick-ish and still big enough for occasional passengers – but couldn’t get over the price of them even secondhand. A good sign in some ways that they’re desireable enough to hold their value well.

Similar type of car (i.e. small, nippy, slightly premium) that’s slightly bigger and will likely be less compromised for the 4-5hr journeys: 2014-onwards MINI Cooper. Plenty around and prices are cheaper than equivalent age Up! GTI. I was searching for one but ended up spending a bit more for a Cooper SD. I’ve owned the previous model MINI and the ‘F56’ from 2014 until current is less frantic but a nicer everyday car.

What’s the budget? King of the tiny nippy car class has got to be the Yaris GR

Usual response would be MX5

I’ve got an MG TF for toy car duties!

You’ll still likely be down on power from a Type R, and an Up is significantly smaller.

I barely touch the power of the Type R on the roads around me, you get a fleeting bit of clear road then back stuck behind a queue of traffic.

Space isn’t a major issue at most there’d be me, the wife and dog. And I’d have the back seats down most of the time with dog cage sat on top.

MINI – can’t bring myself to buy one. They just seem the aspirational badge of new-build estates – BMW 1 Series for the dad, MINI for the mum.

What’s the budget? King of the tiny nippy car class has got to be the Yaris GR

They’re not cheap enough yet – looking at the latest Up! Gti’s around £13k.

I’d quite like an Audi S1. Not sure how much you could get one for now, but definitely tick the “nippy” box

MINI – can’t bring myself to buy one. They just seem the aspirational badge of new-build estates – BMW 1 Series for the dad, MINI for the mum.

Fair enough and I totally get that – I ignored them for years due to associated image of them, but as I’ve got older I’ve learned to not GAF. Ignoring all the chintz and glitter they’re good cars.

looking at the latest Up! Gti’s around £13k.

For a few £ks more there’s the Hyundai i20N. A typical MINI owner wouldn’t be seen dead in a Hyundai!

could you flog both cars and get yourself a 2+2 convertible to cover all your bases? early 996 911s can be had for £10k, or if a ragtop isn’t required, gt86 or rx8 would probably both have enough space

Friend has an Audi S1. It’s now called Herbie because it been stolen twice but recovered quickly in each case.

Do Skoda do a similar version

As someone said above, just go nuts and get a yaris gr.
I am currently able to resist, but has been close a few times

My daughter has an UP!, has done for 7 years, and loves it! Not the gti but the 70 hp version. It is enormous fun! I would imagine the Gti would be even more fun. It’s just about the same size, weight and power as the original golf gti. What’s not to like?

The seats are comfy!

Missus used to have the Audi S1, little 1.2 tsi engine. Was very nippy around town. Think it was 110hp.

Quite noisy on motorways, but apart from that was a good car. £12k she paid for a 2018 car.

the S1 has a 2l turbo and quattro at 220 something hp though – one of our friends has one and it’s a little ripper

could you flog both cars and get yourself a 2+2 convertible to cover all your bases?

MG TFs are fetching sod-all at the minute and I’d be lucky to get a couple of grand for the Type R. And I need to get a dog cage in the daily (and I’d drop the seats down in the Up to do this like I do the Type R).

Not going near Porsches – I don’t need that level of repair bill stress in my life!! 🤣🤣

My twisted thinking is I can get an last model Up! Gti on PCP for around £170/month which is easily manageable. Any more than that and it will knock on to the budget when we eventually have to replace our Kuga. This leaves the MG as the sole unreliable money-pit (not x2 money-pits with the Type R as well!).

The wife has got a 7 year old Kuga for any big-car needs we may have.

can also recommend suzuki swift sport – very well engineered chassis and a 1.6 na engine. Had a 2006 one from new and it was probably the most balanced car i’ve driven – loved to rev right through to the limiter too. Not driven the newer shape ones, and I think they’ve moved to a smaller turbo engine too – but after a quick autotrader search, low mileage 2016 (original shape but facelifted) plate one for £8.5k

Lupo GTI and save yourself a chunk of money.

I have the same engine in an Arona, the 1.0 3 cylinder 115bhp 200Nm turbo. It. Is. Incredible. All the power I need and excellent fuel economy to boot. The Arona is the heavier car, so I imagine it would be even more fun in the Up!

Lupo GTI and save yourself a chunk of money.

surprisingly little in it, a decent lupo gti is around 8k, the cheapest ups (despite being 15 years newer) are only a couple of grand more.

surprisingly little in it, a decent lupo gti is around 8k, the cheapest ups (despite being 15 years newer) are only a couple of grand more.

Plenty around for £5k on forums and enthusiast groups that are decent ones. Seen a few low mileage Jap imports for £8k which do look good. Been in a couple as a passenger and they’re such good fun although for what they cost vs a Mini R53, the Mini wins for me hands down every day. Loads of decent R53s for £3k. Had a couple and would/will definitely have another. Far more of an old school experience than an Up though which is personally what I’d prefer. New cars just make me feel a bit numb.

ZC32 Swift Sport, had 2 now and an 09 31 before.

Utterly reliable, easy to work on and service, fun.

Not going older – may as well keep the ’07 Type R rather than do that.

My partner’s previous car was an Up! It was – despite my piss-taking – actually a decent little car. But the automatic gearbox was indescribably poor. You’d hit a gentle incline, it’d change down, but it took so long to shift that it’d immediately need to shift again due to speed loss, rinse and repeat. You go to accelerate for something like (heaven forfend, what was I thinking) an overtake, it’d give you a form to fill in first. Because of course, when you put your foot to the boards what you really want is for all power to immediately cut for several seconds. Hateful.

I found in the end, the only way to drive it was to stick it in semi-auto and change manually. If you were doing the thinking for it, anticipating road changes and giving it a day’s notice in advance of any hills, then it wasn’t too bad.

We looked for one about 5 years ago but at the time could get a Polo GTI for the same money (6 months old with about 10k miles) which seemed a much better option for the money and it was a great little thing.

Now in a Mk7 Golf GTI but I do still fancy an Up. Would be good to have a baby GTI to go with the Golf 🙂

I think the Up GTI looks absolutely cracking. I have a look at them on autotrader every now and then, despite having no real life ambition to own one seeing as I’m already commited to another fun car

As an alternative, I also really like the Pandas, like the 100hp or maybe a Panda 4×4/cross

I like them, but I’d find it hard to pay most of what they cost new for a used one. I’d probably go for a little Abarth 500-695  at a fraction of the cost.

King of the tiny nippy car class has got to be the Yaris GR

yes, came here to suggest the GR yaris.

An absolutely bonkers car – I bought one in the summer to replace my stolen m4, its brilliant fun on the right road, so very fast across country, and so much more than just a hot hatch.

They’ve just announced the facelift model, so a few people are selling their mk1 versions in the hope of bagging the mk2, but I reckon they will be disappointed with either the new price, or availability.

Sister has an Up! Gti. It’s properly bonkers: like a mad spaniel puppy that just wants to run everywhere. Handles well and rides nicely, takes strange sized tyres that a lot of owners seem to ditch for slightly wider ones. Just enough equipment to keep you happy (nokia 3310-sized rear view camera screen is “wtaf were you thinking?”. Seems to work pretty darned well on  the long runs over from Ireland & will return 50mpg easily. Bro-in-law had it remapped to ~150brake recently. It’s now truly mental.

Abarth 5/695 has more soul though with better equipment. You park an abarth up and look at it over your shoulder every time as you walk away.

i went from a mk7.5 Golf R to a mk8 Fiesta ST.

The fiesta is a great ‘little’ car (not UP! small, but smaller than your Civic, Focus, Golf etc). the 1.5 turbo engine is a peach. Plenty of grunt and still returns 40mpg. Plus options to remap if you wish (i have a Mountune stage 1 on mine).

And can easily be had in your budget.

I’ve never been a Ford man, but after many french hot hatches, a couple of Imprezas and the already mentioned Golf, i fancied giving one a go and have been enjoying ownership over the past 12 months.

So might be worth a look.

{stealth ad alert}
I’m selling this for a relative and hooning it around at the moment. I absolutely laugh my head off every time I drive it – it’s like driving a roller skate!

I’m idly thinking about keeping it and buying a supercharger kit for it……

@the-muffin-man

where are you seeing the Up! GTI’s for 170 on a PCP?

that is very interesting…

Up Gti owner here…
Its a great little thing, loads of fun and well specced out. Ours is the 2 door version. It is a stack of fun and the engine is a surprise making 115hp but the car weighs so little. Closest I can remember is its like the original mini and go-kart feeling. It has its TUV inspection in March then it will be remapped.

Comfy and happy on the autobahn / motorway. Basel Switzerland – Scun*horpe in a day and not a problem. As all things, there is a friendly owners forum and the 195 tyres are usually swapped for 205 to give a bit of rim protection and softer ride over potholes (less of an issue here in Germany).

Can get a decent condition Twingo RS for £2-3k these days. Much fun and great handling.

I had been waiting for patiently since VW released they were going to make them, and so I’ve owned a 2 door Up Gti since spring 2018.

It’s definitely a keeper for me, I use it as you’ve described, rear seats permanently down and a boot liner taking the space so the dogs don’t make it messy.

In no flowing order, this is what I think:

I’ve put slightly wider tyres on (205) and that offers a little more protection, many people go down to 16″ wheels but I love the giant wheels on it!

Simple enough to service yourself, as I do.

It’s built for traffic light racing and twisty back roads, which suits me down to the ground.

To help run it in, the wife and I drove it from the midlands up to the Isle of Skye with a boot full of camping gear, we made sure not to touch the motorways, and crossed east to west coast a couple of times too, I didn’t have any complaints about comfort in the week we spent on the road.

It’s done plenty of long journeys since then too.

I had a standard Up before and that was fun, I’m pretty sure that the turbo version (Tsi) would be a good compromise, however the Gti has much better handling (at the expense of ride comfort over rough road).

It get’s properly abused (whilst still being mechanically sympathetic!) so the needle sees red most journeys.

I would imagine that at high speeds, on undulating road surfaces, it would get a little lively as it’s a very light car with quite firm suspension, that’s what I think…

It isn’t rated for towing, but there are tow-bars available for it, to carry bikes, I had one on my original Up, but haven’t fitted one to the Gti.

Paint wise, have you ever owned an On-One? Get use to paint chips on the bonnet.

Beware, you can only adjust the steering wheel up and down, so you can’t fine tune your driving position.

My daughter has the Skoda equivalent of the non-turboed Up and on a long motorway journey in that, I did get knee trouble as there is no cruise control, however it could have been down to the fact that we walked up and down Snowdon, but still, I’d make sure you find one with the cruise pack.

They’ve stopped production, so what’s left should hold its value quite well.

It’s not fast, it’s nippy, and it still makes me smile when I drive it.

Plenty of upgrades available, JBS offer everything you could need if you have the money. I’ve often wondered about a stage 1 ECU tune and adding in a traction control switch, as it’s always on otherwise, but as I haven’t changed it yet, I doubt I will.

My weekend plaything. Tremendous fun. On a twisty country road it’s utterly phenomenal

I like the idea of an up GTi.

I ended up getting a RenaultSport Clio 200. Big enough for the bikes, cheap enough not to worry too much, fun enough for lots of trackdays. Twingo’s and even C1’s are supposed to be fun too.

I enjoy my Clio almost as much as the Porsche or Lotus I used to have

Mini cooper R53 (the supercharged one) might also be worth a look!

Can get a decent condition Twingo RS

Had one. Fabulous car. Naturally aspirated 1.6. Not fast but felt it. Handled like it was on rails. Took a bike in the back with front wheel off. Not ULEZ compliant. It was better than the R53 Mini Cooper that replaced it in every way (including crash protection after Son1 put it into the central reservation of the M25).

Back when I was driving for BCA, the little VGA siblings were a regular pickup and deliver vehicle, and I found all of them to be nippy, comfortable and quite a lot of fun to drive, even over significant distances. One Citigo I picked up down in Cornwall I had to drive to a drop-off point and pick up another car to take home for delivery the next morning, so I was under certain time constraints.
I do remember overtaking a Discovery on the M5 somewhere around Clevedon with my satnav telling me I was doing 105mph…

That was a standard spec one, with the 1.0 engine, IIRC. I did deliver a Polo GTi to a dealer once, and that was far quicker and much more fun than should be right and proper! I’m sure some people would consider such a car should be made illegal… 😉

Cue finger-wagging from the concerned citizens of STW…

My partner has has 3 Swift Sports in the past and got an Up GTI in December after a lengthy wait. Her previous car was a Cupra Leon 300 so she was apprehensive the Up would be a little dull. We both agree that this is one of the most pleasurable hot hatches that we have driven, really engaging and the engine has bags of torque and sounds ace. Real go kart. The only small car that Ive driven than was as good if not better was a Fiest ST (3 cyl version), the chassis was sublime, could steer it on the throttle and serious fun at sensible speeds.