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And happily, it's an immensely driveable little thing. In fact, it's one of those cars that encourages you to push it hard, if not give it a full-on all-out thrashing. In an age when increasing numbers of superminis have remote, electronically unenhanced steering and dead-feeling drive-by-wire throttles, and weigh more than the family cars of 20 years ago, the Ignis Sport has a sharp, back to basics character. It may be a bit too tall for its own good, but it's stable and chuckable, with agile suspension and grippy tyres - it keeps hanging on round a corner after many rivals would have surrendered to understeer and drifted wide. The engine pulls strongly throughout the rev range, it gets away quickly from a standstill and it's even surprisingly bearable for long motorway journeys. Yes, it really is good fun.

White wheels look the part

Where the Ignis Sport falls down is in its ride quality - hard and jolting - but it's certainly no worse in its general refinement than many of its similarly priced competitors. Its cabin is well laid-out and roomy, all-round vision and ergonomics are good, and on these scores, it rates well above more aged designs like the MG ZR, Peugeot 106 GTi and so on.

'Carbon fibre' adorns the cabin

The Ignis Sport would be an easy, entertaining car to live with, even if it's not one of the star hot hatches of the current era. Sadly, it's probably going to end up ranked with the also-rans as a car that was far better than everyone thought it would be, but one that few people could justify spending their own money on when there were safer bets and more fashionable options around. Shame. But keep an eye on those secondhand ads in a couple of years' time for a great hottish-hatch bargain.