The Fiat also has a rather good driving position. You can get quite low and the steering wheel, with rake and reach adjustment, makes it easy to find your ideal position. The gears feel a bit clunky, like many Fiats we’ve experienced, and the steering doesn’t have much feel at higher speeds. Handling is good, but not quite as agile as the Mazda.

The Opel has good seat adjustment and rake and reach steering, but the wheel doesn’t go low enough. The gears also have a clunky feel, but the steering is really nice. It has a weighty feel, like you’d expect in a bigger car and the handling is really good too.

There’s nothing sporty about the Toyota’s driving experience. It feels like you’re sitting on, rather than in, the car, as the lowest driving position is rather high. The gearing is awesome though, but the steering feels too light and uncommunicative, even at higher speeds.

Surprising space

Not all is lost for the Toyota though. It scores back plenty of marks in the comfort stakes, with those sofa-like seats. The other three cars have much harder seats that may not be as comfortable on a long journey, although their generous side bolstering does create a sportier feel.

Interior space is quite a surprise in all of these vehicles. They’re borderline-big-enough to serve as family vehicles. If you’re looking for the most spacious car, we’d say it’s the Fiat. Rear legroom is surprisingly ample for a car this size, while boot volume also seems above average.

If any car matches, or even beats the Fiat for rear legroom, it’s the Toyota, but while there’s ample room for occupants to stretch out, there’s precious little space for luggage — that boot is minute. But it does make up for this to an extent with the most flexible rear seat mechanisms. The backrests can recline, and they can also be slid forward to make space for more luggage if you’re still taking rear passengers or folded and tumbled forward if you’re not.

The Mazda and Opel have almost as much rear legroom as the aforementioned two but the Mazda’s boot is only average in size, while the Opel’s is pretty large — and it has an innovative split-level system.

When it comes to storage spaces within the interior, the Toyota’s multitude of binnacles takes the cake, making the others seem rather ordinary.

These cars are all highly specced with luxury and safety features, but the Opel pulls a trump card by having cruise control as standard, while Fiat can be patted on the back for offering six airbags, whereas the others here only have two. You can have the Toyota with seven airbags in expensive T3 Spirit form, but we opted for the more competitively priced T3+ model with optional alloy wheels.

And the winner is…

We weren’t very surprised when the score sheet was tallied up and they all emerged rather close, but there were not ties here. While the Opel is undoubtedly a good all-rounder, it doesn’t excel in any particular area. Next to go is the Toyota — while very comfortable and offering the best performance, it doesn’t offer the same emotional rewards as the winners here.

The Fiat is undoubtedly the classiest and most stylish vehicle here, but it narrowly misses out to the Mazda for one simple reason. The little Mazda2 is the only car here that we, as enthusiasts, wanted to drive again. But we wouldn’t buy the sluggish 1.3 Dynamic when finding an extra R8000 would get us the far perkier 1.5 Dynamic.

We also wouldn’t overlook other, even cheaper, lightning lightweights like the Daihatsu Sirion 1.5 or Fiat Panda 100HP.