What exactly is a supermini?
With the automotive market seemingly drowning in different terms for it’s four-wheeled inhabitants, it can be difficult to figure out what it is you are actually looking for as you take those first tentative steps into the showroom.
Terms like ‘city car’, ‘SUV crossover’ and ‘hot hatch’ all sound wildly different, and unless you’re a proper car nut it’s likely that you’ll end up stumped, nodding vacantly as a man in a pin-stripe suit confuses you with automotive jargon.
One of these bamboozling terms, ‘supermini’ is well up there on the confuse-ometer, so here is a handy guide to the basics of what makes a mini ‘super’.
Overview
The ‘supermini’ bridges the gap between small, compact city cars, and larger family saloons. The styling is usually on the sporty side; utilising the sleekness of smaller urban runarounds, but with the added bonus of being able to elongate the body giving them more menace and, most importantly, all-important added style and capacity.
Engine sizes vary between manufacturers, spec and price, obviously, but can range anywhere from economical 1.2-litre runarounds, to 2.0-litre mean machines with their fair share of poke.
Example
One of the best examples of the supermini around today is the Mazda2. With it’s sophisticated lines and handsome features, it’ll probably come as no surprise that the second generation Mazda2 was created by the same chief designer that worked on the very pretty Mazda RX-8.
The car comes in both 3-door and 5-door versions, and engine specs vary from the economical 1.3-litre petrol version with carbon emissions of just 119g/km (£10,305 OTR), to the sporty 5-door, 1.5-litre version if you fancy having a little bit more punch around town (£13,295).
Immensely fun to drive around both rural and urban areas, the Mazda2 looks set to become a bit of a classic within the supermini sector.
Lets just hope the car world doesn’t create any more confusing terms, no one likes looking like an idiot in a showroom.
About the author: Anthony Blascara is a writer and fan of the supermini.
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