I liked the Picanto Auto very much when our Kia dealer lent me on the other week whilst the Cee'd SW was being serviced. Amazingly there was a couple of inches headroom for me and I'm 6ft 2ins tall.

Mrs SDA liked the car but felt it wasn't big enough in the boot/rear seat for all her gear for her choirs (which sometimes includes keyboards) and the lip on the boot was too low for hauling her cases out when they're loaded with music etc.

But unless you have specific needs like the dearly beloved I think the Picanto is an excellent choice.

My 6ft 6 friend drives a Fiat Punto. My 6ft 7 friend has a Honda Civic. Most people will fit in most cars!

The trouble with small automatic cars is that whilst the body is relatively small, the manufacturers fit a big engine in the automatic versions and then the fuel economy suffers. The Note suffers from that issue as does the Mini. The Jazz and Verso S have engines under 1.4 litres in their auto variants which is much more in keeping with the size of car.

Edited by Steamdrivenandy on 16/11/2012 at 18:10

If you're going for a Jazz auto make sure it's a CVT autobox not the horrible I-Shift which ran for a few years. The original CVT box was good and the recently re-introduced CVT is even better but the I-Shift in between was a shocker. You should be able to get an original within your budget.

Edited by Steamdrivenandy on 17/11/2012 at 06:51

This dealer www.automaticcarsltd.co.uk/ specialises in automatics and over the last few years seems to have made a habit of finding very low mileage Yaris Verso autos. I'm not sure how they find them but considering they were last sold new in 2005 it's amazing they keep coming up with cars that only have mileage in the teens of thousands.

I've never visited or bought a car from them as they're darn sarf where it's easier to find auto's, indeed I've even heard of dealer groups shipping autos from oop north to darn sarf because they're easier to sell in the South East.

Edited by Steamdrivenandy on 17/11/2012 at 12:35