Bankers might be rubbish when it comes to saying the "s" word but it's good to know they are feeling some guilt, even if only about the car they are driving. The City's finest are either selling or mothballing their Ferraris and Porches for something a lot smaller.

So what kind of downsize are we talking about? Try 355cm. This is the length of the new Fiat 500, an updated version of the classic Cinquecento, which is fast becoming London's coolest car. The models love it - Liz Hurley, Agyness Deyn, Elle Macpherson and Eva Herzegovina all have one, as well as Natalie Imbruglia, Mika, Tom Chambers, Johnny Vaughan and 16,000 others.

Tim from Fiat told me he'd been doing a brisk trade with downsizing bankers, first-time buyers and young families - there's only room for two in the back - and that the boys from Mini are so peeved they're coming round to look for themselves. So what's it like to drive one?

I arrived at Fiat's Portman Square showroom for my first-ever test-drive, having spent the past 30 years of my driving life spectacularly uninterested in cars. My first was a 1962 Mini with deathtrap brakes and I never wished for anything more.

Now I drive a Toyota Prius and I've grown to like it, perhaps because it doesn't incur a congestion charge. But it's not a car you can fall in love with. This little machine in Jive Blue was altogether different. Pronounced the World's Sexiest Car by Top Gear, it brings to mind calypigious Italian girls in Fellini movies and makes you smile just sitting in it.

Bigger inside than a Mini and at £8,100 more than £4,000 cheaper, it has sweet touches like a secret hiding place, retro chrome dials and - best of all - comes in 11 Farrow and Ball-type colours including Cha Cha Azure and Breakbeat Grey - Tim recently sold one to Jonathan Ross's daughter in Tropicalia Yellow with a chequered roof.

With 549,936 combinations of colour, trim and options, including matching coloured key covers, it's less of a car and more of a fun fashion accessory. A whizz round Hyde Park proved it drives nicely too. Just the thing to blow that redundancy cheque on.

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