Abarth to Clio

Hi folks, my name's Paul, i'm 27 and I live in beautiful Wales with my girlfriend Megan in a charming little town of just 3000 people, nestled in a Valley beneath a huge 3000ft mountain, it's spectacular! There are some amazing traffic free roads here for anybody who likes a good drive too.

I recently said goodbye to my pride and joy, "Abi" a 2009 Abarth 500 Launch Edition which I bought new when I was 21, and covered 58,000 miles. Great little car, so much fun, but it had begun to go wrong and things like road tax, insurance, servicing and repair bills were becoming a little tedious!

So after testing a few cars, I decided to go for a Clio. Only picked "Chloe" up about 10 days ago, but she's a great car, drives lovely and has so many toys and gadgets! Obviously no performance car like the Abarth, but only the power is worse, every other aspect, build, ride, running costs, practicality, interior room etc are all leagues ahead of my bouncy little Fiat! So I do miss the cheeky little Italian, the noise, the speed the crazy loud backfires, but it's time to be sensible now and enjoy saving money hopefully (which I work out to be almost £2000 a year better off now!)

This is my first French car, i'm by no means a badge snob, i'll give anything a go. I've had 3 Italian car and the rest have been Malaysian/Japanese etc. Hoping to meet some new people, possibly organise some drives and no doubt i'll have some querky questions about Chloe very soon!