Calling all 14 year olds; get your mum to go out and buy a new Suzuki Baleno today!
Why would you want your mum to get a Suzuki Baleno rather than a BMW M3? Well, when you turn 17 you’re never going to get the M3 but you might just get to inherit the family Baleno from her.
Still confused? Here’s the deal, the Baleno costs just £12,999 OTR and if you have a look on Autotrader you can find pre registered ones for under £12k. For a brand new car with a three year warranty that’s not a lot of money at all. Yes there are some cheaper options out there but they are usually supermini sized and so not really great for fitting in you and your mates.
When you turn 17 you then just need to convince old mum to pass the keys to you while she goes off and gets something brand new for herself.
What you are then left with is a decent looking, 950kg car with a 111PS and 170Nm of torque. Combine this with a 13E insurance group and £20 VED costs and this mean you can go pretty quickly for not a lot of cash.
The Baleno, for the most part, is a basic car but a great 3 cylinder engine plus modern tablet style infotainment system makes it a good little runabout for family life, or for honing your mates around the countryside.
Clearly the Baleno is not built for great handling but if you’re just inherited the car for free, three years down the line, then it would be easy enough to stick a set of lowering springs on and maybe even beef up the brakes.
Driving around in the Baleno did take me back to driving hatchbacks in the 90s. The feel inside the car is similar and it even has windup windows in the back. What you do get now that you didn’t back then is alloy wheels as standard, lots of safety equipment, Bluetooth, nav, DAB and up to 70.6 MPG. It’s certainly quicker, better equipped and more economical than my first motoring experience.
CAR: Suzuki Baleno 1.0 Boosterjet SZ-T
PRICE: £12,999
ENGINE:Â 998cc, 3 cylinder turbo
POWER: 111PS
TORQUE: 170Â Nm
PERFORMANCE: Top speed 124 mph 0-62mph 11.4 secs
ECONOMY: 62.7Â mpg combined
CO2 EMISSIONS: 105 g/km
TT Rating:
