Exactly a year and only 5268 covid miles from new, nothing has gone wrong apart from a mysterious rattle caused by a stray bolt rolling around in the depths of the B pillar. Mrs F and I remain very pleased with this nippy little SUV. The carefully run in engine seems good, the oil level has gone down only about 5mm from the maximum mark. Assuming one litre between the surprisingly large gap of 40mm from min to max on the dipstick, that’s about 125mls of oil burnt, assuming no fuel dilution – unlikely at this age.

The computer has two trip recorders for average speed, mpg and distance. The first has not been reset since we got it and reads 31mph/41.4mpg/5267 miles. I have reset it today to see what it will read after another year now the engine is run in, hopefully including some long distance trips which we have yet to do. On the second trip recorder I recently recorded two outings on A and B roads to nearby towns, driven by me, purposely economically but not slowly. The readings were 34mph/48.6mpg/38 miles and 39mph /44.7mpg/48 miles.

I’m particularly impressed with the low rev torque of its tiny motor, having thought such engines would be noisy little buzz boxes. Anything but! It lopes quietly across the countryside, the EAT6 always keeping the revs around 2000 rpm at non-motorway speeds. Fifth gear is 25 mph per 1000 revs and sixth is 30mph per 1000 revs. (My TR7 2.0 litre is much thrashier with fifth gear only 21mph per 1000 revs). For boy racers there is an ‘S’ for sport (holds lower gears for longer) and for rapid overtaking there is an instant ‘kickdown’ response, dropping gears to eagerly red-line at just below 6,000 revs. I hardly ever use the manual ‘tiptronic’ option, Mrs F never does.

Handling is crisp, as expected from a small car, with no obvious over or under steer tendencies, although I haven’t been brave enough to explore its limits. Roadholding seems excellent on the standard issue Goodyear Vector4seasons 205/50 17. Quiet too, as presumably softer rubber than ‘summer’ tyres.

Niggles? Pathetic single tone horn, unadjustable intermittent wiper speed (why didn’t the infinitely variable rheostat I remember on early Renaults never catch on?). Fancy alloys – a designer’s dream, a pain to clean. And that’s about it, apart from new car depreciation pain. (It cost £17K). Still, if it lasts as long as the Focus (and it certainly won’t be doing as many miles) that’ll be less than £1000 per annum (or under £90 pcm for those thinking in PCP mode)…and I might be a nonagenarian.