Best city car you can buy: 2015 Renault Twingo

2015 Renault Twingo 

Unless your name starts with Crown Prince or ends with Abramovich you will have experienced a first car built by Renault. It might not have been yours, but as per protocol, it will have been dreadful. More dreadful than the word "dreadful" could ever imply, even if you smeared it on the roof in the black oil that leaked from its anaemic little engine.

That's not to say Renaults are intrinsically bad, but that Renault was. Herein lies the problem. On the one hand the French carmaker's produced some extremely fine vehicles - the 5 Turbo 2, which dominated Group B rallying, the R25, which won the Drivers and Constructors' Formula One Championships in 2005, and the mighty Mégane Renaultsport 265. On the other, it produced that Clio or 19 or 5 Le Car that clunked when you turned left and smelled odd, which ruled out the company's offerings from serious consideration forever more.

The thing is, Renault has a knack for building cars that genuinely enrich the intellectual vigour of motorcars. The Zoe, for example, is the first cheap pure electric car. Then there's the Twizzy. We're still not sure what question it answers, but it's a lot of fun trying to work it out. This is its latest, and it's called the Twingo. The engine is in the boot and has only three cylinders, it has a similar sized footprint to a double bed, and it manages to diffuse 864kg across an inordinate range of abilities.

Let's start with the engine. To cut down on weight and fuel consumption Renault's lopped off a cylinder, reducing the count to three, but instead of fitting it under the bonnet it's been laid on its back in the boot. That means the front end can be shorter than its predecessor but the wheelbase can be longer (12cm, fact fans), adding room in the cabin for things like legs and loved ones. 

2015 Renault Twingo 

Then there's the steering. Unlike nearly every other hatchback, where the engine and gearbox are mounted in the front above the steering gubbins, there isn't anything big and mechanical getting in the way of the wheel angles. That means that the turning circle's vast (only 0.6m shy of a London taxi) and because the snout's so light and unencumbered there's a linearity of input that lets you put it exactly where you want to on the road.

It's relatively swift, too. Don't expect a mini Porsche 911 (they're arse-engined as well), but in the right spec there's plenty of power for the city, and enough to have some fun with in the countryside. Don't bother with the smaller, irredeemably slow 898cc 70bhp engine - the larger 999cc 90bhp turbocharged unit's the one to have. If you're in town and keep it in second gear (it's a manual five-speed) at around 3000rpm it bolts like a pensioner's terrier, and the bubbly little three-cylinder soundtrack's a surprisingly pleasant addition. 

The bigger engine forces you into the top-level trim tier but that's no bad thing. You get niceties like 15-inch alloy wheels, cruise control, LED lights, DAB radio, a USB input and Bluetooth as well as a faster steering rack, so you turn the wheel inside less to move the ones on the outside more. Renault's also gone big on the interior options, so you can spec the colour in a range from executive monochrome to the sorts of patterns you see for a few seconds after you've looked at the sun. That said, we'd avoid the latter. As well as the matter of taste, going bananas on its innards will ruin its resale value. 

2015 Renault Twingo 

But keep things clean and sophisticated and it'll be all the car you need for the city. The Twingo's genuinely different approach to design, engineering and packaging means that every last atom of value is extracted from each millimetre and you can really feel that when you compare it to its competitors on the road. Go to your dealership, drive one and you'll get a robust inkling that it's time to reassess Renault's reputation. Your first car this resolutely is not.