THE ENTRY level sector of the car market is, perhaps the most competitive of all and there's a plethora of wee beasts out there which will give you road tax free motoring, miniscule fuel costs, and, for younger drivers, reduced insurance premiums - which is a huge consideration these days.

It's not enough nowadays simply to add sons/daughters etc to the 'fleet insurance' and I think a lot of farmers would have a fit if they were actually to breakdown just how much young people are hammered by the insurance industry.

So, the wee small-engined runabouts - sometimes dubbed as 'city cars' - have added focus because of this. Recently a handful of such came my way for road testing and, to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised that, even with a 'pre-SlimFast' body tone - all of them actually felt quite spacious in the front seats. A wee spell in the back row of any of them, though, puts this domain firmly in the less rotundly challenged.

Three of those tested, incidentally, come out of the same shared manufacturing processes - the Peugeot 108, Citroen C1 and Toyota Aygo - but have different enough styling to differentiate them from each other. Some of them, to my mind, fall into the 'cookie' styling bracket and certainly have some style appeal for the young brigade.

I have to admit that Peugeot's take out of the three, the 108, certainly was the one that I felt most at home with, followed by the Citroen C1 and the Toyota Aygo. But, of the interiors, the little Toyota provided the most appealing frontage, with a clear and distinct dash, faced off with piano black and nifty little colour out-takes.

All three of these offer just about any colour combo you can think of (one even has a 'Kilt' designation) and there's certainly scope in there to build yourself a very individual car. That includes being able to have a semi-convertible roof (on the Peugeot and the Citroen) and a two-tone colour scheme.

Like the Citroen, the Peugeot came fitted with a perky little 1.2-litre petrol engine, while the Aygo had a one-litre petrol - all three-cylinder designs - but to be honest, there wasn't much between the three in terms of performance and all qualify for no road tax.

Funky design is a criteria in them all too. In my books 'funky' is defined a bit like the modern music scene - you have to be a teenager to appreciate it!

As you would expect with this target market, Bluetooth connectivity is well up there on the most popular add-ons and the higher end of the spec' grades offers really good, clear touch-screen displays - some of them even better than on premium marques

Those with the 1.2-litre engine have 82 bhp available to them - which is quite a way in front of the one-litre's 69 bhp. But, for them all, you can expect well over 60 miles to every gallon of fuel, with the Aygo rated at getting 70-plus.

Expect to pay between £8000 all the way up to close on £13,000 for the different specifications on all three brands.

What's the best - well they all perform pretty much the same, so it's all down to looks and that brings personal preference into it. The Peugeot, to me looks the sturdiest, the Aygo has the best interior and the Citroen has its plus points too.

They are all certainly worth a look for someone who wants easy motoring on both a practical level and on the pocket.