best car in insurance group 11 for under £2k?

Hell, even I drove like a tool in my first car.

I learned when I was a passenger in my friends clio and he spun at going way too quickly on icy roads (70 around a corner) and slammed it into a tree sideways - on the passenger side :(
 
I had the 'Get something rubbish because you WILL hit a lampost/hedge/small child anyway' when I asked for advice from people about my first car, and to this day I don't understand it. Whilst it might be true that teenage drivers cause a lot of accidents, you are statistically not likely to have an accident in your first year of driving (figures I've found say 23% of 17 - 19 who pass their test have an accident). And even then this figure isn't directly proportionate to the red blooded males like you or I who might drive a bit... 'enthusiastically'. I'm sure just as many of those accidents are caused by idiots who quite simply do not have the confidence to be a safe driver.

Second is the insurance issue. Months of playing around with insurance quotes proved one thing to me, a car is either insurable or it is not. A 1.25 Fiesta isn't going to get you spectacularly cheap insurance quotes just because it's sensible. It's either an insurance company is willing to take you on for a high, but affordable quote, or they are going to tell you to bugger off and quote you £6k+.

Thinking outside the box is the best for insurance. I think It's been proven by the owner's club that the cheapest car to insure for a first time driver to insure by far is a Morris Minor, I believe there is a lad in the owners club that pays £300 for his first policy. Another few chaps I've read about have £800 policies on Triumph Spitfires, and I myself got several ridiculously cheap quotes on old British Leyland sheds (3.5 V8 Rover SD1 for £900 a year living in SE London anyone? what about a 5.3 V12 Jag XJS for £1,100? :cool:). If they interest you, Classics are a great way to go in my humble opinion. You'll have to do a lot more research than jumping on autotrader and then typing the reg into confused.com once you've bought it, but I think it's more than worth it (I've certainly enjoyed my 'modern classic' 205). And yes, you can get sub 21 year old classic policies!

My suggestion would be to get down to a track day no matter what you get. Looking back at things, I might have driven a bit questionably when I first got my license, but my first track day really put things into perspective. Driving quickly on a track you've only got to worry about the next corner, on the road you've got to worry about Speed cameras, Police, pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers, motorcyclists, road surfaces, pot holes, speed bumps, the list is endless. After the track day I couldn't be bothered trying my luck on the public roads. Not only did it all seem suddenly dangerous, but boring too (well, compared to the understeering towards trees one handed at 50MPH with front tyres smoking whilst yanking the handbrake like a mad man like I did when I was on track :D). That's why I think I've been able to jump into a car with twice the power of my XS, with less weight and yet still probably be less likely to crash.

At the end of the day, go hunting on Pistonheads, autotrader, etc and find something that YOU want. If you're going to be spending £2k and about £1,000 at least on insurance you might as well get something that you want. Your opinions are limited because of insurance, but still try your best to see if you can over come them and if not, try and find something else that you'd like.
 
Same here, luckily I didn't have any big incidents. I drove like a tool, but I only had a 1.0 106. So I drove like a pretty slow tool, albeit plenty sideways on the stick thin tyres I had.

I am like this in the clio, was worse, but after getting it sideways, i now know the car wont go that fast around corners so dont bother pushing it that hard :D
 
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