I drive a 1960s 6.7-litre V8.  I’m in my late 40s, am extremely unfashionable, and married with three grown up (almost) boys.

I’m certainly no trendy 25-35 year old female who sees a car as being as much a fashion accessory as a transportation device, yet I quite liked the Barina Spark (I do so hope that none of my petrol head mates are reading this).

Why? Apart from one glaring shortcoming which I’ll get to, this wee Holden does everything it’s supposed to and with style. 

Sure, it’s not the style I’d opt for, but from a young woman’s perspective this diminutive city car’s about as chic as you can get.  Surprisingly roomy for its compact proportions, the oh-so-funky interior is loaded with neat styling cues. The exterior colour – in this case it’s an eyeball searing bright ‘Chilli Red’ – is carried through to the painted inserts in the doors and dashboard.

A motorcycle-style instrument binnacle sits atop the steering column; it combines an easy to read old-school analogue speedo ‘pod’ with digital readouts for the other relevant info.

There are cubby holes, bins, shelves and cup holders galore, just the thing for the lippy, um, I mean, my leather wallet…Build quality didn’t disappoint either. The interior surfaces look good  and feel like they’ll last, and the exterior paint finish and panel gap was hard to fault.

Safety’s another big plus. There are two bright Sparks: CD, at $16,990, and the CDX tested here at $18,990, which really is as cheap as chips.

Both have six air bags, traction/ stability control and ABS braking. What they don’t have is an automatic transmission, which undoubtedly will deter more than a few young female buyers.

Yep, both variants are fivespeed manual only, and to top it off the clutch’s action can be a bit vague. The big black mark on the Spark’s otherwise shining scorecard it its performance, or lack thereof.

Zipping around town from traffic light to traffic light is not an issue, but venture out on the open road and the 1.2-litre engine struggles big time.

There’s 59kW of power available at 6400rpm, and 107Nm of torque at 4800rpm. Torque’s the important figure, and 4800rpm is high in the engine’s rev range.

Simply put, getting up a reasonable hill in fourth gear is hard, and in fifth it’s almost impossible.

Our test car lost power on two occasions for no reason at all, almost like the key had been switched off. The sensation was familiar to the loss of power when a small car’s air conditioning compressor kicks in.

To get any kind of decent acceleration the engine needs to be revved hard, and it sounds busy as a result. Even though the target audience is unlikely to be performance orientated, here’s a car that’s crying out for more power. As my wife Sharron succinctly put it, “I liked it ‘till I drove it”.

It has style, space (for such a small car), manoeuvrability, rides comfortably, is well built and can get around 5.6-litres per 100km; it’s just a shame that there’s no spark under the bonnet.

Reviewed by Alistair Davidson

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