Volkswagen Polo Mk6

THIS year marks half a century since the original Volkswagen Polo arrived (although the Audi 50 upon which it was based made its debut in 1974), and since then this upmarket supermini has carved out a niche for itself as a classless small car.

- Richard Dredge

The current (MK6) model was launched in 2017 and VW refreshed it in 2021 to keep it competitive, so the fact that it's in this year's survey is fairly impressive.

However, VW no doubt would hope that a big-selling small car such as the Polo would do better.