Vauxhall’s Viva returns

and has the convenience of five doors.

It’s a crowded and competitive marketplace, and the Viva finds itself up against strong opposition including the Hyundai i10, Volkswagen Up, Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 108 and Citroen C1.

The original Viva was produced from 1963 to 1979 but this one has been brought right up to date, and is very 21st century.

Many of its rivals have gone for the funky, somewhat wacky appearance whereas Vauxhall seems to have settled on a generic Vauxhall design to fit in with the rest of the range.

It’s neat and smartly styled, though, with the signature ‘blade’, seen previously on the Insignia and GTC amongst others, slicing through the doors, with large headlights and tailights.

It makes the Viva a curvy and compact little city car.

Inside the cabin the company has also taken a different direction to the funky, colourful, chunky interiors of many of its rivals. It seems the popular way now is to have thousands of ways to personalise your car with colours etc -and while that’s not such a big thing with the Viva my test car was of a shade of green that made finding it in a car park a doddle.

It was hard to miss it anywhere to be honest.

It’s still very much a grownup design inside, with a lack of colourful graphics and youthful styling.

That said, it’s a smart and well designed cabin.

The speed readouts are conventional, and clear and easy to read, while the heating controls are of a similar retro, solid look.

The whole dashboard is well laid out and easy to navigate.

The Viva is the cheapest Vauxhall you can buy, starting at around £8,000, and correspondingly hard plastics are prevalent throughout the cabin.

But a good mix of textures and design, and a good build quality, manages to compensate for that.

To succeed in the small / city car sector the model needs to tick a lot of boxes, one of which being providing a pleasant comfortable place in which to travel.

The Viva comes over well in this department.

For a start it’s bigger than many competitors, and with the luxury of two extra doors in the rear the rear passengers are going to have an advantage.

In the front the driver and passenger have plenty of headroom and legroom, with supportive, comfortable seats helping to ensure good levels of comfort.

There’s a decent amount of room for rear passengers, too, who can travel in as much comfort as you could hope for in a city car of this size.

The boot, however, is on the small side in comparison to many, but there are lots of little compartments in the cabin to help out.

The Viva isn’t really built for long journeys but it will tackle them enthusiastically enough.

It’s pretty quiet for a small car too.

The engine is nicely hushed and although there is some wind noise and rumble coming through the tyres is never enough to cause much of a problem.

Around town, where the Vauxhall is likely to spend most of its life, the little car drives smoothly and efficiently goes about its urban business.

Visibility is a little limited, though. The pillars are thick