Reality check....
Obviously the Mii (how the hell do you pronounce that?) isn't aimed at the majority of the contributors to SCN, but that's missing the point, I think. The UP's been getting rave
reviews for its quality and driveability, so why shouldn't the Mii be more of the same, only at a cut-price?
When I got my '09 Exeo recently, my 23-year-old son drove it for the first week on a free 7-day insurance policy, as part of the deal. Needless to say, he loved it - but adding him to my full-time policy would have cost £2k. When he gets a job - hopefully soon - he'll be looking to replace a seven-year-old Group 1 Citroen C2 with something cheap to fuel and insure, which has folding rear seats so he can fit his drum kit in the back (he's a gigging musician). Questions may be asked of the Mii's interior quality but, take it from me, it looks to be leagues ahead of the C2, and if SEAT pitch it at the right price and it's in a low tax and insurance group, I can imagine my lad hot-footing it to the local dealer to give it a spin. If it gives him economical, sturdy transport for a few years, where's the the
problem with that? Modern SEATS -
Ibiza, Leon, Exeo - are pretty well screwed together and there's no reason why the Mii shouldn't be too.
Sure, it's easy to carp about SEAT just getting VW's cast-offs but platform sharing/
badge engineering is where it's at these days - and I think we can all agree that most of their current models are a damn good drive, even though their underpinnings appear across the whole VAG range. And obviously VW don't want the Skoda and SEAT versions to outshine their new pup.
I'd also like to see a bit more Spanish flair re-introduced to the SEAT range. But that says more about VAG's bid for global domination than anything else - I think they've got their fingers in so many pies just now, that SEAT's future direction is a pretty low priority at the moment.
However, I'd be quite happy to see my son driving about in a Mii rather than its over-priced and (to my eyes) uglier VW/Skoda counterpart or, worse still, any of the C1/107/Aygo brotherhood. Now they're REALLY cheap and nasty.