BRENDAN SEERY

THE motor industry – especially the European one – is increasingly marching to the beat of a different drum these days. And that beat is that of the threecylinder, small-capacity petrol engine.

We’re seeing them pop up eve r y wh e re : Renault’s Clio and Sandero models have threecylinder turbos, while VW uses one in its naturally aspirated Up! city car and so does Citroen, Toyota and Peugeot in their small offerings. The new Datsun Go also has a three-cylinder, while Opel is using a turbo unit in both its new Corsa and the fashion-statement Adam small car.

The idea is that the small capacity and fewer cylinders mean better fuel consumption – something which is going to become key in the next 10 years as all European manufacturers are required to meet stringent consumption and emission standards for an average, across-the-range reading.

Back in the 1980s, the Daihatsu Charade stood out from the crowd with its small, but characterful three-cylinder engine. Because it is half of a six-cylinder, a three has a gruff, offbeat burble and a slowrevving nature which means in most of these cars, third gear feels as though it is going on forever.

I was keen to see how the threecylinder worked in Opel’s new Corsa (and we had the 1.0-litre Enjoy on test) … because Opels, in this country at least, have always had a reputation for being sporty, cheeky little cars (see my colleague Greg’s comments on this page).

The Corsa is, in my opinion, one of the best small hatches on the market at the moment. The turbo gives the car a hefty 85kW of power which means the 1.0 litre will see off cars with much bigger engines. The turbo doesn’t seem to have a lot of lag, although you need to carefully balance clutch and accelerator to get a clean move off the line. The 170Nm of torque is more than my old 1989 1.8 Jetta used to produce … and, because it’s available at lowish revs, overtaking is brisk.

As I would expect from an Opel, the handling is crisp and the company’s engineers have managed to continue the Corsa “fun factor” in the design of the new car.

What is surprising, though, is how well the car rides. The suspension soaks up imperfections in the