Dacia to Ferrari: Testers trade cars in Ultimate Secret Santa

Secret Santa. A nice idea, often poorly executed. Usually it’s done as a money saving measure, and usually it’s within an office environment and you end up buying for someone you don’t know particularly well.

But this Christmas we’ve turned the tables. We’ve given our crack team of road testers unlimited funds with which they can ‘buy’ someone else their dream car.

The results? While of course there’s one supercar, a cheap EV, a resto-mod and a commercial vehicle all make the list too…

Mark Tisshaw Who likes someone enough to get them that Ferrari out there in the car park? That’s the one we all really want…

Matt Prior It’s Christmas. If you’re going to buy somebody something for Christmas, money no object, why not buy them a Ferrari? And it’s festively red.

The coupé, however, isn’t a new car, but the Spider is, and I think I’m right in saying it’s replacing the coupé to become the only Roma.

Given that (a) it’s such a good car in coupé form and (b) Richard likes it so much, I thought it was the perfect car for him. Is it not the best Christmas present? Like, ever?

Steve Cropley Is that the first time you’ve been given a Ferrari, mate?

Richard Lane Sadly, yes… But what a superb gift it is. Truly, I feel there’s a case to be made that the Roma is not only the most complete car Ferrari makes but also, possibly, the best.

It has had a bit of a chassis nip and tuck going from coupé to Spider – the bite point for the brakes isn’t so ridiculously sensitive and the steering is a touch more measured. It’s just a bit more natural to drive overall, and remember the coupé being already incredibly intuitive.

Underrated, too. It lives in the shadow of the 812, but only in the minds of those who haven’t driven both cars: it does things the V12 car doesn’t. Or, at least, doesn’t do easily, at sane speeds.

On the road just now there was a sweeping corner where you change down to third, turn in, then squeeze the throttle an almost imperceptible amount and the nose just tightens.

I mean, an Aston Vantage is just so far from that level of deftness and precision. And it’s such a pretty thing.

Ferrari Roma

From Matt Prior to Richard Lane

Price £210,848

Price as tested £323,799

Power 612bhp

MT So why say it’s underrated? We all love it.

RL No one really talks about them. It’s not spectacular, it doesn’t really get headlines. And I think to understand the genius of the Roma, you really need to spend time in one and, not to put too fine a point on it, know how to drive smoothly and with precision.

When you’re flowing it along at seven-and-a-half-, eight-tenths, gearing up most of the time, and you listen very, very carefully to what the chassis is doing… It’s completely brilliant. Era-defining.

Matt Saunders Perhaps it’s got Porsche Cayman-itis, or, like the Ferrari 360 Modena, there’s a precedent for people overlooking junior cars from brands like that.

SC I think that’s it. It’s a format of vehicle that doesn’t make it the most radical Ferrari, therefore you perhaps don’t move it to the top of the class. I think a Spider in particular looks terrific. I love the profile. Beautiful.

RL It’s a format Ferrari should try to keep alive in some way or another: a compactly proportioned, beautifully balanced, everyday, usable, sporting Ferrari.

MT Speaking of keeping things alive… Who brought that MG and what is it?

RL I did: it’s an MGB from a company called Frontline, and I collected it only this morning in Abingdon, just around the corner from here, for Mr Matthew Saunders.

Bear with me here, but I think that car embodies what our road test editor is all about: it’s got a rich vein of laid-back, leather and metal tradition running through it, and yet it is a sporting car that wants to be driven hard and attack a good road. Think of it as the man’s Patronus.

Frontline MGB

From Richard Lane to Matt Saunders

Price £140,000 (est)

Price as tested £140,000 (est)

Power 290bhp

MS And I haven’t had a go yet. The last Frontline MG I drove was the electric one, but obviously that was missing an engine. How big a part of the experience is the engine in this one?

RL Huge. The engine is an utter cracker: a 2.5-litre Ford Duratec but completely overhauled. It now makes 290bhp and spins out forever.

The rest of the car is gloriously analogue, too; it hasn’t even got ABS. You need to really think about driving it and what you’re doing. Equally, it’s not at all recalcitrant.

The ’box is from an MX-5, and there’s variable power steering so it’s easy to manhandle in car parks. It’s a perfect blend of usability and rawness. Genuinely comfy, too.

SC They haven’t done anything to the shape, have they? The wheels are nice, too.

RL On the faithfulness, one of the reasons they’ve kept that live axle at the back is so it is absolutely authentically an MGB.

It would have been quite easy to change the pick-up points, rip everything out and engineer something new. But they haven’t. It does handle and it does ride, and these roads around here are about as tough as it gets for road testing. 

MS I do wonder where it sits. They didn’t set out to make the electromod, but there was so much bloody demand for it, they had to. People were asking for it all the time. But I’d like to think plenty of others will still want a four-cylinder MG with 290bhp at all those revs.

MT Who brought the Jimny?

SC I did, and it’s for Mr Prior. The thing that did it for me was looking in the back of the commercial version, which is all you can buy.

It seemed to be about the size of a hay bale, and he’s always on about moving animal feed from here to there. We’ve had the odd conversation about Jimnys being good cars, and how light 4x4s are better than heavy 4x4s.

MP It’s just what I always wanted; I’m close to tears. It will do everything the Defender I have now does apart from towing, but that’s okay because I barely use it for towing any more anyway.

It has no seats in the back, but that’s okay because the children left, so we don’t need seats in the back. It has a bulkhead between the cargo bay and the cabin, so you don’t get the front full of hay, and that’s another advantage.

It’s small enough that the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s isn’t going to come round and let the tyres down. It’s spot on, and it’s not going to present me with a four-grand service and repair bill, like my Defender is about to.

Illya Verpraet What more could you want? And you’re not too tall to fit in it.

MS Is there less room in the front of it in the commercial versions?

IV They have to put the bulkhead in a certain place to classify it as a commercial vehicle.

MT Is this a bit of a road testers’ car, a car we enthusiasts like but which hasn’t really caught fire commercially?

Suzuki Jimny Commerical

From Steve Cropley to Matt Prior

Price £22,299

Price as tested £22,299

Power 100bhp

IV I think it has caught fire. They just couldn’t sell that many because of CO2 regulation and one or two other things. They could have sold many more than they were allowed to.

SC They’re much more successful in far-flung markets, such as India and places like that, and I don’t think Suzuki can really be bothered with investing in a European specification. It’s a case of grabbing one while you can.

RL About it being a road testers’ car… It’s actually kind of the opposite. It’s a car we all love, but because the road test has to be an objective assessment, the Jimny ends up getting only three and a half stars: the steering isn’t there, the body control isn’t there, it’s not that innovative, it’s quite expensive.

It’s a four-and-a-half-star car in our hearts, but we can’t justify awarding it that score in a road test.

MT Staying with small cars: the Dacia Spring.

RL The one with five miles of range left after a morning of light driving?

MS I brought it, and it’s for Illya. He’s been very gracious about it. When you do Secret Santa, somebody always pipes up and says ‘10 quid max’. So I thought if you give somebody a useful, cheery, cost-effective present, they will always say ‘thank you’ because they don’t want to embarrass you or appear ungracious.

SC But it looks all right. It’s not a toy. I can see it fitting into lots of people’s lives.

Dacia Spring

From Matt Saunders to Illya Verpraet

Price £14,995

Price as tested £14,995

Power 44bhp

Range 140 miles

MS It’s not one of those pointless little toolkits you get in a cracker; it’s a useful thing, and it has a lot of value. If I had one, I’d get loads of use out of it. And what can you expect for a £15,000 car?

SC A £15k electric car, as well.

MS It’s very hard to get a £15k combustion-engined car at the moment, never mind an EV.

RL Credit to Dacia. For that money, I think we would all rather buy something second-hand, but the fact that you can go out and buy a new EV for that, with a warranty… It’s great. 

And it isn’t some sort of toy, like the Ami.

IV You look at it, you see the Linglong Green Max tyres or whatever they are… But then you drive it. I do like Dacias, and they are always surprisingly good. It doesn’t feel like an expensive car, but it isn’t trying to be one: it’s decent, and you would get a lot of use out of it.

RL I’m in the Duster at the moment, and it’s very good indeed. It just goes neatly into a corner, the steering picks up nicely, relative to the car’s positioning, that is. Is there any of that in there?

IV It rides quite well for something with really cheap, basic suspension. It doesn’t clunk on these bumpy roads and it’s not thrown about left or right. In everything it does, it’s fine, and that’s the impressive thing about Dacia.

I love the way they are: surprisingly cheap but more than decent. This Spring isn’t quite as complete as a Duster, but offering an electric car for so little money really is quite a result.

SC The thing I love about Dacia is the way they make life hard for their rivals. Every time they launch another model, you can see the people who are trying to sell against them sort of going: “Oh sh*t.”

MT That leaves just two cars. Who brought the Morgan Plus Four?

IV I brought the Morgan for you, Mark. You’re our Car of the Year juror and you deal in sensible, rational cars. But motoring isn’t all about sensible and rational, so I thought I’d bring you something very different.

I love the Morgan, not because it’s the objective best car in the world, but because it feels special and it’s an event, and I often find that matters more than raw ability.

SC It’s pretty fast, too, even the four-cylinder one. Part of the reason the Plus Six is disappearing is because the people who buy Morgans have discovered that 240bhp in a 1000kg car is actually quite enough.

MT I’ve embraced it. I had the roof down earlier. I got incredibly cold, but it had a very effective heated seat. I like it; I get it. It made me think of Morgan’s hire car business, frankly.

I think as an experience it works very well. The problem with nostalgia, though, is that it’s finite, and on my drive back here I was already fulfilled.

Morgan Plus Four

From Illya Verpraet to Mark Tisshaw

Price £76,141

Price as tested £81,690

Power 255bhp

SC You don’t strike me as a particularly nostalgic person…

IV I don’t think it is nostalgic: I wasn’t alive when these came out. It’s just a great-looking car, it’s very modern underneath and if you have it with the manual ’box, it drives really well. You don’t have to worry about it like a classic car. It’s got the sort of styling and sense of driving sensation that you don’t get in modern cars any more.

SC Morgan’s success has a lot to do with the kind of place people are at in their life. They tend to sell to the mature buyer, because they’re the ones with a few quid to spare.

MP And it’s more chilled than a Caterham or an Ariel. You say to your other half: “Why don’t we drive it to the pub, or for a walk this afternoon?”

They’ll jump in it in a way that they might not be quite so delighted to in an Atom. You could go to a wedding or to the theatre in a Morgan, but you wouldn’t really do that in a Caterham.

MT Morgan is a hobby. That’s why my mind went straight to that hire car business.

SC So true. If you arrive at Morgan in the late morning for a job, the hire fleet is all gone.

Everybody is showing up at 9am with their missus or their kids, and they start arriving back at 4.15 in the afternoon. There are about 10 of them on the hire fleet, and they sell them after that, of course. 

MP You can do that five times a year, spend £1000 and have as much fun as actually owning one, but with none of the hassle. And you might not drive it any more.

MT That leaves us with the Kia. I’ve brought it off the back of a year spent driving four-metre-plus-long electric crossovers for Car of the Year judging: the EV3 stood out as the very best.

It felt like a four-star car in every area, but it might end up having a higher star rating in a ‘more than the sum of its parts’ kind of way. My mind took me to the Volkswagen Golf, because the EV3 feels like a no-compromise car in the world of EVs in the same way the Golf does in the ICE arena.

Steve would get the virtues of this car: it’s one in which you can get filthy and do 25,000 miles a year. It will ask nothing of you, but you can enjoy interacting with it at the same time.

SC I like cars like that. We’ve had numerous good experiences with electric Kias, and this is the best one. I like the size particularly.

I also like the practicality of it, the probable reliability and the range, and the price you’re talking about is pretty affordable. It’s one of those cars you would just live in: you would use it all the time.

MT It’s not as big as it looks, and it in effect replaces the Niro EV while also undercutting it on price.

I think that is a fantastic demonstration of the rapid progress we’re now seeing with electric cars and how they’re becoming more desirable and more usable, a bit more of everything, while coming down in price at the same time. The EV3 probably does that better than any other I’ve found.

SC I like the fact that the car’s styling appears to anticipate the Chinese threat. It takes the car somewhere where other cars aren’t, and it anticipates the future. Kia and Hyundai are going to get a hard time from the Chinese, but they are already thinking about that and I admire them for it.

Kia EV3

From Mark Tisshaw to Steve Cropley

Price £32,995

Price as tested £39,495

Power 201bhp

Range 367 miles

MS It’s better value than a Jeep Avenger but comparable for appeal, desirability and style.

MT It’s a class up from the Jeep Avenger, but it’s a no-contest: this beats it everywhere, even on price. I was on the launch of the Kia, and I went pretty hard on how good I thought the car was.

Then it turns up on your driveway on a cold, wet November morning in dark grey and black and you start to have doubts: is it really going to be as good as I remember? But, yes, it is that good.

SC It’s got a really good, satisfying interior, too. There’s a freshness about the design that I find really pleasing. It makes me feel optimistic about the future.

IV Both Kia and Hyundai are very good at interiors, at keeping all of the stuff that’s good about traditional cars, such as control buttons and an easy kind of practicality, then clothing it in something that looks really modern and which has all the necessary functionality.

MS Would you have one of these instead of a Renault Scenic?

MT I think the Kia has a year on the Renault in terms of advancement and desirability. The Scenic was good everywhere, whereas the Kia is better again and more desirable. It’s progress.

MS Before I pay the bill, how are we settling who drives away in what?

MT I hope you’ll all agree I’m a nice, easy person to work with, but I’m using the phrase ‘pull rank’ for the first time ever and taking that Ferrari. You can sort out the other five between you.

RL The MG: it’s so, so good. I could sit in it for a very long time.

MP I’ve got a horrible feeling you’re going to say you want the Jimny, Matt, so I’ll take the Morgan.

MS Yes, please. It seems the ideal car to enjoy for a bit and then teach my kids to drive in it.

IV As much as I love the Morgan, this one is an automatic, so it’s a bit of a waste of time. I’d go MG, too, if it wasn’t already taken…

SC I’d have the Kia. I think of the cars we have at home already, and the EV3 is one we would use.

MT So nobody has the Dacia Spring…

SC I’ve got time for that, too.

IV A Dacia Spring and a Morgan: now there’s an ideal two-car garage.