Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 CZC T

What's new? This is our first drive of Mitsubishi’s hot coupé-cabriolet, the CZC Turbo, on British roads, and it’s the only car in the compact CC segment that promises anything like an entertaining drive. It uses the same 147bhp turbocharged engine as the CZT hatchback, but packs a folding metal roof into the bargain.What’s it like? It’s no open-air hot hatch, that’s for sure. While it has the same motor and gear ratios as its warm hatch sibling, with its heavy folding metal roof, the CZC Turbo tips the scales at 1200kg, 130kg more than the CZT, and it shows. Performance is just peppy enough to set this car apart from its rivals, but the electric steering still feels inert, the gearchange imprecise and turbo lag is pronounced.You won’t mistake this for the standard CZC, though, thanks to the huge ‘Turbo’ badge on the rear.Should I buy one? If you want a small CC with character, this is your car. It’s great value next to the less powerful Vauxhall Tigra 1.8 Sport, but a Mini Cooper S Convertible is more fun to drive.

Matt Saunders

Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.