Supermini megatest - Honda Jazz

Honda Jazz 1.4 ES
List price £12,235


Marketing types like to portray small cars as the exclusive preserve of the young and fashionable. Glance through almost any brochure and you'll see them photographed outside chic cafés or designer shopping malls. Reality is different.

With the exception of maybe a few Fiat 500s and Minis, small cars face a life of drudgery rather than decadence. The young and fashionable may drive them, but not in the way that the brochures depict. Besides, with some superminis, the young and fashionable stay well clear.

The Honda Jazz is one. This is a car that has always attracted the grey pound; one bought by people who, shall we say, don't have to worry about setting the alarm to make sure they get to work on time the next day.

You can understand why. If you no longer have the mobility of a spring lamb, perhaps have a disability, or maybe need to help grandchilden in and out, small cars don't come any more friendly than this one.


The sills are at just the right height for an easy step-in, the doors open to a good width and the driving position puts you just that little bit higher than a lot of other traffic. There's also terrific visibility.

Then there's the brilliant rear-seat space and versatility. Lift the cushions towards the backrests and there's a gap large enough for the biggest potted plant on the way home from the garden centre. Lower the backrests in the conventional way and you have a long, flat load deck.

In the ES model, there's even a four-position boot floor, so you can compartmentalise and protect valuable cargo.

A Jazz will never break down; use the gearshift indicator lights and instant fuel consumption gauge and you'll achieve more than 50mpg on a run; and after three years, you'll probably get back more than half of what you paid for it.

Where the Jazz singularly fails is in putting any sparkle into its road manners. It has a fine 99bhp 1.4-litre petrol engine that's willing to let you be lazy yet also loves to be revved, but a choppy ride and energy-sapping road and wind noise will deter you from wanting to put many miles on it.

Fun handling? Forget it. It's hardly surprising, then, that whenever you see a Jazz, it's invariably being driven slowly.