Proton GEN - 2 ecologic - cutting back on cost

If you had the choice of spending half the amount on fuel that you normally would, you might be considered foolish not to grab the offer, especially if you could repeat that saving every time you got into your car.

The car in question is a Proton, their GEN - 2 ecologic model, coming in at a modest £10,995. And the trick it has up its sleeve, or rather in its boot, is a tank of LPG as well as a decent-size tank for your everyday petrol.

So not only does this car delight me in its cost saving abilities, but also in the fact that I can travel getting on for 500 miles without having to fill up - especially as the weather is getting colder and those garage forecourts, never attractive at the best of times, appear to turn into tunnels of freezing cold wind.

Rather like a prima donna this car arrived in style, tightly secured on the back of a pickup truck, looking gorgeous, stylish and very orange (although some of the pictures here were taken during our first drive with the GEN-2 a little while ago). My initial impression was of a rather sleek boy-racer - but I always tend to tar cars with a spoiler with the same brush. Perhaps more boy racer meets sensible saloon.

It certainly got looked at with the eye-catching statement along every body panel advertising lower fuel.

So this car is all about dual fuel, petrol and LPG (liquid petroleum gas) and its ability to go from one to the other almost unnoticed. And of course the advantages is that LPG is almost half the price of petrol and produces fewer exhaust pollutants and so reduces the impact of this car on the environment and on your purse.

I did just over 200 miles on the LPG which cost £23. I then switched to petrol with a press of a button and it cost me £44 to cover the same distance. I didn't notice any difference in performance (although if you measured it there is some) and was mildly surprised that a car aiming to be economical and ecological still had a rather pleasing throaty roar -  or was that just my heavy foot?

There are garages all over the place that cater for cars run on LPG - especially going up the motorway. I was rather nervous about filling it up for the first time and quite frankly hadn't a clue as to how to go about it. However help was at hand with a poor man patiently waiting to fill his own dual fuel car and another customer who took pity on us. You can't mess around. There is a 30 second window for you to get the nozzle off the pump and secure it onto your tank outlet. Something we failed to realise. But once connected, it's just a push of a button and there you have it.

To me the biggest selling points of this car are the initial cost and the fact that as soon as you start driving it you are effectively saving money. This is a considerably cheaper car than other cars of the same size, yet there are sporty leather seats which are comfortable and great to look at, still a good sized boot despite the fact that the LPG tank takes up some of the space and there is definitely a hint of lotus in its interior styling.

My only gripe would be that it's noisy on the motorway and the small slanted rear windscreen doesn't afford the best visibility. I would prefer that the advertising hoardings were removed, but thankfully it wouldn't come like that were you to buy one! What a relief...

In summary? A cheeky little car that won't break the bank at the dealership or on the road.-mirror.co.uk