Sooo after being away travelling and working for a while I'm finally back!! However, while I was away I was driving around Scotland and Ireland in a Chevy Spark and Peurgot 106. Both were of a similar size to my beloved CC and still they made me feel like my decision to buy her was a good one.

The Chevy Spark was awful and got out accelerated by an ASDA truck on a motorway in Scotland and felt like it was going to roll evey time it came to a roundabout. The 106 wasn't bad (I finally broke my string of driving US cars whenever I went to Europe) but still nowhere near as tight as the Mini and completely missing the quality feel. They were both rentals and pretty basic, well abused cars but not that far from what I would expect the newish ones to be.

I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences or found a car that was similar in size and feel to the Mini. As far as I can tell there is really no competition in the segment here in the US but maybe there is in Europe? Obviously most of us prefer the Mini since thats where we spent our cash but have you ever found anything similar?

 

Suzuki SX4.

We have one and it is like a MINI that sits a foot up.

 

Go-cart.

 

I think the new Fiat 500 Abarth esseesse might be the closest competition? I haven't seen it before, but I heard that it's even smaller than the Cooper

 

In Europe, there's a lot of competition for the MINI. Here's some examples:

Audi A1


Citroen DS3


Alfa Romeo Mito


Fiat 500 Abarth


Volkswagen Polo GTI


Seat Ibiza Cupra


Those are the ones that come to mind.. however, none of them beat the MINI in terms of looks, power and handling. Out of all these cars, I chose the MINI

 

Well that's Chevy for ya. They still don't know how to build a decent small car, apparently not anywhere in the world. I got an Aveo for a loaner one time when my last MINI was in the shop for a week. That could easily have been classified as cruel and unusual punishment.

 

That Fiat is very cool. I'd look at one if they came stateside (Fiat's rep notwithstanding).

 

As to the Fiat, I would want at least 3 years of good experience reports before I would consider it, plus it really isn't very attractive, but the double bubble Abarth of the 60's was cute. The Alfa looks interesting, I owned 2 of them in the 60's, fun cars but reliability ZERO. VW and Audi, spend a lot of time in the shop. Citroen is FRENCH, Seat is SPANISH, enough said.

 

Sorry to dredge up an old thread... but theres a quote from Top Gear where Clarkson talks about Alfa's being worth all the frustration for the few seconds when everything works at once.

Italian cars are built with passion - they thrill you and then expire in a cloud of smoke!

 

europe are so lucky wit so many to choose from

 

I'll stick with my MINI.

 

This post makes me jealous of Europe and all of their awesome cars. I'm happy that the Fiat 500 is atleast coming here though. But I'd love for the entire Alfa brand to come here. Most gorgeous car brand next to Ferrari.

The only "comparable" cars to the Mini here are that lame Suzuki SX4, that claims that its better than the mini. (LOL) A terrible cheap plastic Dodge Caliber, and a freakin Aveo.

edit: the MK6 Golf/GTi is definitely a great comparison actually, but they're bigger cars.