Here's a funny thing. I'm used to my mum's Peugeot 106 - which has a 1.4i petrol engine - and have done a good few thousand miles in it in town, on A-roads and even on motorways. It feels nippy and it has the tax and insurance prices of a real car to match.

The most impressive thing I can say for it is that it is the car in which I set the speed record for my regular A-road trip between Mum's place and my old house in Canterbury; the run I use to test cars out over a variety of conditions and road types.

But but but... It never felt really fast. I was always expecting more. A 1.4i in a little car should feel quick, but it never felt noticeably faster than the old 309 which was bigger and only had a carb'd 1.3. Hell, it didn't feel any faster than the very knackered Citroen GSA I was driving at the time she bought it.

Recently, I went with my sister to Bristol, in her car because I didn't have anything that worked. She has a 1.1 Citroen Saxo - effectively the same car as the 106.

It feels exactly the same as the 106.

How did they do that? How did they give the 1.1i engine exactly the same characteristics as the 1.4i?

It reminds me of the way my dad recalls the purchase of the old 309. There are contemporary road-tests which recorded exactly the same results for the 1.3 and the 1.6.

In totally unrelated news, this week's local paper reports a spate of thefts of car bonnets - two from Peugeot 106s and one from a Citroen Saxo, all within a few streets. See? I told you they were the same car. Unless car-part thieves have become seriously thick.