Shunted along by a three-cylinder 996cc petrol engine, the city car, in manual transmission form, is capable of more than 74mpg on the open road and in excess of 50mpg even in town, while putting out a meagre 103g/km of carbon dioxide.
You can add to that financial appeal a starting price tag of £6,795 and a Group One insurance rating for the S2 and S3 models.
For less than £2,000 more you can have the range-topping Group Two SZ4, the version on test here, which will bring you an electronic stability programme, air conditioning (also in the SZ3), a full set of airbags, 14in alloys and front fog lamps.
There's a proviso attached to all this, however; don't expect to get anywhere very fast in the Alto and don't rely on getting those fuel figures. The little engine, which is brought over from the successful Splash, is short of poke with its 68PS output and 66lb/ft of pulling power and you can spend a lot of time shifting down to fourth or even third to get momentum, the sort of thing which sets mpg figures tumbling.
And be warned, if you go for the four-speed automatic version the figures are considerably down, the CO2 is up and the car takes 17 seconds to get from standstill to 62mph.
You can add to that financial appeal a starting price tag of £6,795 and a Group One insurance rating for the S2 and S3 models.
For less than £2,000 more you can have the range-topping Group Two SZ4, the version on test here, which will bring you an electronic stability programme, air conditioning (also in the SZ3), a full set of airbags, 14in alloys and front fog lamps.
There's a proviso attached to all this, however; don't expect to get anywhere very fast in the Alto and don't rely on getting those fuel figures. The little engine, which is brought over from the successful Splash, is short of poke with its 68PS output and 66lb/ft of pulling power and you can spend a lot of time shifting down to fourth or even third to get momentum, the sort of thing which sets mpg figures tumbling.
And be warned, if you go for the four-speed automatic version the figures are considerably down, the CO2 is up and the car takes 17 seconds to get from standstill to 62mph.