FIAT 500
99g/km
Official fuel economy testing has a reputation for real-world inaccuracy, but rarely have laboratory figures and your bills at the pumps been as far apart as they are with the Fiat 500 TwinAir. In the brochure this is a 67mpg car, but unless you’ve got the footwork of a ballerina, you can expect high 30s to low 40s in mixed use. Still, it’s the lab tests that decide official CO2 figures, and the Fiat’s 67mpg equates to 99g/km, sneaking under the free VED barrier as a result. And if you accept that you’ll not get diesel-style economy, the 0.9-litre turbocharged parallel twin is a bit of a hoot – it makes 103bhp in its hottest form (an 84bhp, 95g/km version is also available), gets to 60mph in under ten seconds, and the burbling two-cylinder noise under full throttle certainly doesn’t help with your fuel-saving efforts.
The whole car is bursting with character in fact, surely one of the reasons the 500 remains so popular a whole 17 years after its 2007 launch. The shape, of course, is more like 67 years old, but is just as adorable as ever, and the retro-style cabin and its bright trim options staves off the miserable feeling you get in some small cars. The upright driving position can be a bind, but the high-set gearshift is fun to noodle around its gate – better than the optional Dualogic automated manual, certainly.
500s are subject to the usual city car/new driver/cheap car abuse but stand up to it far better than Fiats of old. Interior trim may be worn but there are so many 500s out there that replacement parts are easy to find. Owners can overlook suspension bushes, so clonks and squeaks aren’t uncommon, but the TwinAir unit itself is usefully trouble-free.
MERCEDES C-CLASS
48g/km
Don’t get too excited – the ‘350’ in this Mercedes’ name doesn’t mean there’s a 3.5-litre lurking under the bonnet. It’s no AMG-lite and you won’t find a purring six-cylinder soundtrack like the best big-engined Benzes of old. What you get instead is a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder with a helping hand from an 82PS electric motor, for a 290PS total and a 0-62mph time of under six seconds.
All this is wrapped up in a fourth-generation ‘W205’ Mercedes-Benz C-Class (saloon or estate), with the C350e running between 2015 and 2019 – a similar period to its closest rival, the BMW 330e. Of the two, the Mercedes gives you more power, though like the BMW and all other plug-in hybrids, outright economy depends on just how often you can replenish its 20-mile EV range.
C-Classes don’t typically have the reputation of the
