I am looking for a first car

[Goatw007]

I have been looking for ages for a first car, I am 17 in October and am trying to decide what to get as a first car, I love cars and I am a bit of a petrol head.
I would really like a first car with lots of character, it doesn’t have to be classic but I don’t want it to be boring. It must be £1,500 for the car and no more than £1500 For insurance, any ideas would be much appreciated, cheers

[AidenM]

Hello Goat,

I think for people to give you advice on particular cars you'll need to consider the following;

- What constitutes "character" in a car for you? Do you mean something that would be rarer/not as often seen, or just not often driven by someone of your age group? If you listed a few examples of cars that you consider to be characterful then I imagine that would help, as well as whether you're looking at hatch, coupe etc

- Realistically you will struggle to have a large choice of cars simply because of your age & lack of experience as insurers will consider you to be a "high risk", and as such with your budget of £1500 for insurance, you will have to compromise.

- What is the risk category of your postcode where the car is to be insured? You can get an idea of how "risky" insurers consider your postcode online by searching something like "car insurance postcode risk category", not certain if I'm allowed to supply a link but I'm sure you'll find something with that search term.

- Are you to be the only insured driver of the car? If so, again this will be considered an increased risk. Years ago it was common for parents or older relatives of younger and new drivers to essentially "front" the insurance. This means that they would insure the car as the main driver, and the younger or inexperienced driver would be listed as a "named driver" - this tended to reduce premiums quite noticeably. Insurers are now very strict on this and I would not recommend attempting to do so as they may well refuse you in the event you needed to make a claim on the basis of "fronting", I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will clarify this in more detail if necessary.

With the above said, it is possible to slightly lower your insurance by adding an older or more experienced driver as the "named driver" as long as you are listed as the main driver, as it assumes that some risk of the policy is shared by the driver with more experience.

Generally speaking I would recommend you first look up the insurance groups of cars you are interested in to see whether they are realistic, or perhaps get yourself a quote from one of the large comparison websites on a generic vehicle e.g. a 10 year old Fiesta 1.0, to gauge what kind of prices will be available to you and then adjust your expectations from there.

Hope this gives you some food for thought,

Aiden.

[ZX10R NIN]

Id say look for a Mito:

Veloce 120 You'll have to haggle & check the insurance

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202...

Veloce 95

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202...

Clio Dynamique S 100

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202...

Grande Punto Sporting

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202...

Mazda2 Sport

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202...

Swift SZ3

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

[Goatw007]

Thank you so much

[ZX10R NIN]

I forgot to say you're insurance will be between 1.5k-2k

[MRichards99]

Gen 1 Toyota Yaris - should be able to pick up a decent example for that money, though watch for rust. Reliable as anything - mine regularly gets taken up to 6k rpm, done 30k miles in my ownership (now on 104k) and excluding regular oil changes, a clutch, and drop links, the car hasn't had much else wrong with it. Revvy little engine with it having VVTi - having regular oil changes is the key to having a reliable engine (due to VVTi and it being timing chain). I used to have 13", 155 width tyres on there - an absolute hoot in the rain as oversteer was effortless, but at safe speeds (it's how I learned to oversteer). Probably didn't help that I had decent tyres at the front and budgets at the rear, but good fun! I've now got 14", 185 width tyres now I commute with the car but still good fun. Cheapest car for me to insure too - ~£1300 at 17 with no black box, though it was around £900 with a black box if you wanna do that.