Overview What is it? It’d be fair to say that 2021 wasn’t exactly a normal year. All a little bit topsy-turvy for a great number of reasons, wasn’t it? Perhaps the biggest shock of all came at the end of the year though, when the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders announced the UK’s best-selling … Read more
Overview What is it? The fourth generation Skoda Fabia supermini, the smallest and cheapest Skoda you can buy. Skoda’s proud of the fact it’s sold more than 4.5 million since the Fabia first went on sale in 1999. It was that first-gen car that really established Skoda as a credible carmaker after years of quips and jibes … Read more
Overview What is it? This is the sixth generation of the Corsa… if you include the first generation car, which was sold as the Nova in the UK but known as the Corsa everywhere else. It was launched in 2019, with a delayed release thanks to then-new Vauxhall owner PSA Group wanting to build the car on … Read more
Overview What is it? This is the sixth generation of the Volkswagen Polo, if you can believe it: it’ll be knocking on for 50 if it’s still around in 2025. Yikes. This version was launched back in 2017 – making it fairly old by car industry standards – and facelifted in 2021 with some of … Read more
Overview What is it? The first Renault Clio arrived back in 1990. Now we’re into the fifth-generation. That arrived back in 2019, and it’s recently been facelifted. Didn’t actually change much though, just gave the looks a tweak. Do not read this to mean the Clio is essentially unimprovable, more that since the departure of the Fiesta and … Read more
What is it? It’s a new small electric crossover. Here at Top Gear we might as well have that sentence set up as a keyboard shortcut (cmd-alt-E-C) because we use it so often. New small electric crossovers keep coming, many from Chinese brands you haven’t heard of. This one’s different, because it has deep roots. … Read more
Overview What is it? The cold rational left-brain summary is simple. The Renault 5 is an electric supermini, sitting at an impressively good-value part of the price-range curve. A version with 255 miles of WLTP range can be had for £25,000 and it’s got most mod cons. But of course the right brain is in … Read more
Overview What is it? It’s the fourth generation Suzuki Swift, or it could be the sixth generation depending on how you look at it. Suzuki itself refers to this as the fourth gen, but that’s because it considers the 2004 iteration as the first ‘global’ Swift and thus the first generation. Here in the UK, … Read more
Renault 4 This is the Renault 4 (Luca de Meo’s version), a modish small SUV with a retro jacket on that offers a smidge more practicality than the smaller 5 hatch. It’s also our reigning EV of the Year. Vive la France! Renault 5 There’s a delicate line to tread with a retro modern take … Read more
Honda Civic Honda took an interesting tack with this Civic: honing the drivetrain for impatient European tastes first, then adapting it for lazy American driving afterwards. It shows: this is a well sorted, mature and very complete family hatchback, well kitted out and impressively refined. Skoda Octavia The Octavia’s 27 years of production make it … Read more