Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Something electric?

Budget and use requirements are important otherwise every one will say honda jazz, or V12 mercedes.

I don't have a license either, never needed one. When I was testing the waters I looked at cheapest second hand car to insure vs new car with a few years of insurance included and they worked out about the same. I figured it's probably best to go down the new car route until you've got some years of no-claims. Citroen do one called Simply Drive but it's still like £400 a month for 3 years.

I was in a similar situation. But once I looked at the monthly running costs of a car in London with minimal usage I decided to get a cargo bike instead.

One thing i didnt know that zipcar wont let you hire unless your license is at least a year old.

The only option is Enterprise Car Club, sadly they have no cars in Lewisham.

I would have gotten a honda jazz or if there was anything else that was soulless piece of shit thats cheap to run, but that’s because I genuinely hate cars and British society needs to play catchup.

If you want cheap and cheap to insure, buy a skoda fabia. I think they're insurance group 1 or 2 and are basically a cheap Polo. Easy to drive, park in London and not too bad on motorways.
We loved ours and only replaced because we were doing more and more long journeys/UK holidays (and because I am a wanker).
We got our insurance down to about 550 a year (eb 3 years and me new driver).

Am also really enjoying our 118i now though and don't feel like it's too much car for me as a new-ish driver. I think the insurance is something like 800 a year and it cost just under 10k for a 2015 plate with 30k miles on it. Bought part cash, part small bank loan (better than ridiculous finance deals) so repayments are low and it doesn't cost us much to run.

If you buy a 2011-2013 one with less than 50k miles you're looking at 6-7k (fag packet estimate). I looked at golfs but they're a bit dull and pretty much the same money as a BMW so I bought the car I liked instead.

Ten year-old Lexus IS250. Easy to drive. Fantastically cheap for the quality, last forever. ULEZ compliant despite being V6 petrol. Not that costly to insure cos driven mostly by old folk.