Cheap thrills

There are two types of people in our office — those that love the CitiGolf and those that would rather stick needles in their eyes than drive the legend.

The pro-Citi fraction always counters the argument with "name a new car that will stroke your manly ego without having to spend more than R130 000". It used to be a sure fire way to shut the non-VW fans up, but not anymore. Here are the two factors in the anti-Citi brigades' arsenal: the Fiat Panda 100HP and the Daihatsu Sirion 1.5 Sport.

At R119 995 for the Sirion and R130 500 for the Panda, the pair are twenty-odd grand more than the top flight CitiRox 1.6i but are substantially higher specced. Add a radio/CD the inconvenience of manual windows, Aircon, ABS, EBD, power steering, airbags, and more to the Golf and it'll cost a similar amount. So here, excluding buying second hand, are SA's only Citi alternatives and the only other entry-level performance cars.

I won't harp on about the Panda too much as we did a full track test in the October 2007 issue. In summary Fiat has got the package right. The 1.4-litre is perky and pulls well enough around town. We clocked a 0-100km/h time of 11.9 seconds and the consumption average measured in at 6.5l/100km. We clocked a Kyalami Hotlap of 2 minutes 25.5 seconds and were impressed by the turn in and handling although we felt the brakes and steering were a bit overly sensitive.

The Sirion was notably slower around the track and only mustered a 2 minute 30.6 second time although the 100km/h sprint was almost the same at 12 flat. Like the Panda, the Sirion's turn-in felt surprisingly stable considering the top-heavy appearances and the steering was spot-on in terms of giving front wheel feed back.

I can only presume the Panda's fancy Goodyear F1 rubber allowed us to get the power on earlier for a faster exit speed and hence lap time. The Panda tyres and suspension helped it on the track but I’d prefer the comfort of the Sirion for the daily commute.

You either love the Fiat interior or not. It is quirky with holy-cheese looking speaker covers, two-tone seats and plenty of plastic. The Sirion is a bit more straight-faced in a Yaris-reminiscent way. Unlike Fiat, Daihatsu has opted to not go for a leather steering wheel and driver-involving high gearlever. Exterior styling echoes this trend with the Panda scooping big extrovert points and the Sirion flying below the radar.

So which one would I put in my garage? I'm the VW fan in the office so there is no loyalty to either the Italians or Japs. And the winner is the Fiat Panda 100HP, for the simple reason that Fiat had the guts to offer those of us at the bottom of the chain a real passionate car.

Daihatsu have the right platform but need to offer us fancy tyres, big alloys, tinted windows, diffusers and splitters. If they can do that for under ten grand they'll really challenge the Fiat.