Our Cars: Volkswagen Up GTI farewell

It was one of those nightmare journeys. You land at Heathrow after dinner on a delayed British Airways flight with 100 miles of motorway between you and home. But because it’s late there are closures, one a single junction after you’ve joined, another a single junction before you want to leave. The weather is foul, visibility is terrible and, of course, there are roadworks too. A two-hour drive takes more than three.

At times like these, the car you clamber into for what’s inevitably going to be a horrid journey is everything. Some will be like stepping into a country pub with a log fire at the end of a rain-soaked hike: an S-Class, a Range Rover, that sort of thing. Others will feel adequately safe and secure, substantial enough to be cosseting even if they don’t isolate you from the journey altogether: think A4 or even Golf.

Others, meanwhile, actually make the drive worse. My Up GTI is one of those.