Our blue 1987 Megane catastrophically failed an MOT a few weeks ago (which means that it’s hors de combat, we can’t drive it on public roads, not get it insured). So it’s off to the knackers yard … (yes, we really did have two Renault Meganes, albeit very different models, and yes, we do need two cars given where we live and work) …

… so we’ve just bought a year old Seat Ibiza ecomotive. So that’s two cars we’ve bought where a primary discriminator between cars has been the expected CO2 emissions per km. You may recall that last time we upgraded a car (also due to knackeraciousness of the previous car) we were pleased to significantly decrease our emissions … well this time, the difference is even greater. The ecomotive official extra urban figure is 88 mpg!! (Mind you, I think our red Megane has an official figure of 69 mpg, and we get more like 55 … so if we get 70 with the ecomotive, I think we can be pleased).

From a life cycle point of view, the ecomotive really stands out, currently third on the supermini category at whatgreencar.com, and seventh overall if you ignore electric cars (for now). (As an aside, I think whatgreencar.com is a great site, even if it’s not that firefox friendly, and together with the fuel figures at vcacarfueldata.org.uk should be an essential port of call in pre-car-buying research.)

The only annoying thing about this car is that it doesn’t have a trip computer telling us our fuel consumption, and as I remarked in 2006, I think one of those does influence driving style (and fuel consumption) significantly. Not that I care much what Jeremy Clarkson thinks, but it’s relatively fun to drive too … so you can have some cake and eat it too!

comments (1)

RoyLowry (on Sunday 10 May, 2009)

Sorry Bryan,

If it doesn’t have more than 200 horses under the bonnet then it’s not what I call fun, and real fun starts at 300. Sadly, I follow the gospel according to St Jeremy and still regret going for a Honda rather than an S Type R. The test drive of the latter still leaves fond memories…..