SMALL CAR FOR VERY EXCITABLE REBELS Hundreds of thousands of new cars will take to the roads of Britain this month as the new 57 plate arrives. And among the huge variety of cars, none will be more numerous than superminis. So how do you stand out from the crowd as a supermini owner? Buy one that’s guaranteed to get you ahead of all the rest, that’s how. This solution won’t be cheap, but it will be fun. And probably most fun among the hot superminis at the moment is the Vauxhall Corsa VXR. It’s a knockout for both motoring pleasure and your fillings thanks to its unforgiving ride but it’s a hell of a way to drive to the dentist’s to get the mercury amalgam replaced. The mercury will be soaring in the old thermometer too, even though the weather’s cooling as we head towards winter. Every time you look at the VXR you warm to the excitement to come as kids in Citroen Saxos rev up beside you at the lights. You can pull away effortlessly thanks to the Corsa’s huge gobs of torque while they shred their engine’s innards to destruction. Mind you, the Corsa can be just a bit too hairy if you let rip in first gear. That’s not because it races away so much as the fact that it hits the rev limiter almost straight off in first. When it happened to me it was straight back home for a pair of clean trousers as I was trying to enter the traffic on a busy dual carriageway. In those circumstances, you always have an eye on the mirror for what’s looming up behind while the Corsa sits there with its engine bouncing away on the limiter and taking you nowhere unless you make a quick grab for second, which you soon learn to do. Scary stuff first time out, though. Not as scary, mind you, as the ultimate model in the VXR range, which is an Aussie muscle saloon with a Chevrolet Corvette 6.0 engine that will rip its way through BMWs like those blokes who used to shred London telephone books and blow up hot water bottles on Opportunity Knocks. The VXR moniker is all about halo effect. The idea is that people notice them, find out what the car is, and then nip down to the showroom and buy a Corsa 1.0 Expression in white for £7,495 - even less if they possess haggling skills. They can dress it up for £800 with a VXR styling kit, although it might be so heavy by then that a 1.0 litre motor won’t actually move it far and certainly not fast. It still makes marginally more sense than the £15,625 you’d spend on a VXR if all you want to do is run the kids to school or the impress the kids who are now sadly old enough to rescue Vauxhall Novas from scrapyards and fit Lexus lights to them because some poncey magazine has told them that this represents true style. The VXR driving experience is something you can savour in the right circumstances, nevertheless. Blast away down back routes in the Corsa, making the best of a 1.6 litre turbocharged engine offering up to 190 bhp and 196 lb ft of torque - enough to shred the front tyres through which it feeds to the road - and you’ll have real fun. The car is compact enough to fit through small gaps and has the type of stopping power you need when the engine has this much go. I’m not so sure I’d have one in the black paint of the test car, though, as combined with the dark interior it all becomes a little to overwhelming. And overwhelmed is how many other drivers will feel when they see what the Corsa VXR can do. It’ll also provide up to 34 mpg, which thankfully will underwhelm your credit card. Maurice Hardy Annette's View Small cars are really all most of us need nowadays even when we want to have a bit of a blast. I’m sure that eventually many people will come to the conclusion that as, for most of the time, we only have one or two people on board it makes sense to run a small car and hire something larger for the odd occasion where masses of space is required. Certainly a car like the Vauxhall Corsa would do it for me, although I would want a five door, which you can’t have at present in the VXR format. There are other drawbacks to the VXR, such as the Group 16 insurance. And while the central triangular exhaust, very much a concept car feature, has made it to production (Ford cheated on the StreetKa by turning this original design feature into a circular reversing lamp) it does mean you can’t take advantage of the optional built-in bike rack feature which many outdoor loving VXR buyers might have found useful. Overall, though, it’s a good package. The shell-backed front Recaro seats look and feel right and overall finish is good. And you won’t really need the £1,000 leather trim option of the test car. Sometimes it’s great to be a hooligan again, if only for a short time. Car: Vauxhall Corsa VXR 1.6 turbo Does it fit your ego?... 0-60 mph: 6.8 secs Top speed: 140 mph Bhp: 190 @ 5850 rpm Torque: 196 lb ft @ 1980 - 5800 rpm ...and your wallet?... Price: £15,625 Urban: 26.9 mpg Extra urban: 44.1 mpg Combined: 35.8 mpg CO2 emissions: 190 g/km Insurance Group: 16 Best bits: small but perfectly formed package; big-hearted performance; stuffs students in Saxos.