The Savvy was another step along Proton's road from selling rebadged Mitsubishi cars to making terrible ones in its own right. Whilst technically you would call it a supermini, there is nothing particularly super about it.
Proton certainly likes to keep things simple though - there is one body style in one trim with one engine available here. You can pay a little bit extra and get an automatic gearbox with the car if you like, or the alternative is spending that £700 on taxis.
The occasionally discordant styling is fairly sharp in places, lending the Savvy a certain charisma, but the effect doesn't last for long. The build quality is terrible - the doors and the boot open and close with a tinny clatter, the dashboard is made of cheap and nasty plastics, the steering wheel feels curiously greasy to the touch and ergonomics are non-existent.
In many ways the Savvy feels like a third-world rental car, but there's no way that you'd ever expect anyone to have enough faith in it that they would try and sell it in the UK.
There is at least some adjustability available in the front seats, which seems to be a tough thing for Proton to manage. Legroom is restricted in the rear of the car, though, and that sloping roofline impacts on headroom too.
The handling is absolutely dire; the Savvy pitches and rolls at the sight of a corner. The suspension is set inexplicably soft, and the queasy will end up feeling sea-sick after a short time in the car. The suspension appears to smother bumps and ripples in the road quite well, but the roll and pitch undoes any of its good work.
The steering is quite low-geared, meaning you need to put more effort into getting the car to turn, but given the wobbly ride that's probably no bad thing.
The 1.1-litre engine in the Savvy might be an old Renault motor, but something is lost in translation here. It sounds horrendously thrashy and makes noise in inverse proportion to the amount of shove that's been transmitted to the wheels. It's always noisy. The terrible gearbox makes things worse - driving the Savvy is hard work.
The Savvy is admittedly cheap at £8,000, but there are actual good cars available even at this price - shop around and don't look back.