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I’ve had a car buying frenzy lately, first it was the 10 Mazda MX5’s that I bought for Mazda UK, then all the cars for the current series of Wheeler Dealers, and now to take advantage of the governments generosity for company car users I’ve just gone and bought my first new car!

Yes, hard to believe that, but the bloke who’s famous for selling thousands of used motors has never actually bought a new car! So what’s all this help from 10 Downing Street all about? Well if you’re a company (like me) and if you buy a car that’s less than 110 grams of CO2, then 100% of the car is claimable against your tax bill.....yep, sounds too good to be true, but it's true.

So what cars out there meet the low CO2 targets? Not that many cool cars unfortunately, cars like the little Seat Ecomotive or the VW Polo Bluemotion don’t quite have the right ‘look at me’ value, but, there’s two cars that tick the style box and even me would be proud to own them.

First up is the MINI, BMW sell a MINI cooper diesel with only 104 Gram CO2 rating a trick little car that typical of MINI you can spec through the roof (if you pardon the pun) problem is with MINI is the cost, once you start bolting things on you can wave goodbye to a week in the sunshine with your family as the price creeps up into the late teens.

So I settled on my second favourite car on the list and the current UK number 1, The Ford Fiesta. You can’t help but admire the Fiesta it really is a handsome little car and with 110 Gram CO2, I settled on buying a 1.6 Econetic. Now, I could have used my slightly famous mug to negotiate a discount directly from the manufacturer, however I thought I’d support my local dealer, Hartwells Ford in Banbury and bought the car just as a normal punter. Simon Faulkner the salesman nearly dirtied his trousers when I walked through the door, but after a brief look round the car I knew it was perfect and we struck a deal.

Now the little Fiesta sits proudly on the Brewer fleet and I’m finding it hard to wrestle the keys away from my PA.

Mike