I know bashing the name of a car is the lowest hanging fruit of motoring reviews. If it were much lower to the ground, it would be a potato. But honestly and truly, I can’t write a single word about the Ignis until I address the fact that it’s called the Ignis.
It is a terrible name for a car. Terrible.
The second I heard it, words like ‘ignoramus’, ‘ignoble’ and ‘ignominy’ came straight to mind. Perhaps they were more hoping for the association with ‘ignite’; as in to arouse or inflame. But, as I rather not imagine myself engulfed in a ball of molten metal while I’m driving, that doesn’t add the the appeal either.
So what does Ignis mean? Well the closest I could get to an answer was from the Merriam Webster dictionary which only defines ‘ignis fatuus’ as “a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter”. Lovely!
So what was the marshy marshy gas light like to drive? In short (and I have to be short now because much of my word allocation has gone) it’s a fun little car best suited to the city driver.
On raw visual appeal, it’s entirely personal whether you’re a fan of boxy cars. But the toaster-like shape does more than create a point of interest on Australian roads where long and sleek rules supreme. It means you’re maximising storage space. And while the Ignis is small it feels much larger on the inside.
One of the best things about the Ignis is the driving position: it feels quite high and gives you a good view of the road. It’s also a perfectly zippy and responsive car for hammering around the CBD. And parking! Ha! You’ll practically be able to back this baby into a bike rack. The reverse camera will help you do so, but you’ll have no parking sensors. I doubt you’ll need them.
But chuck the Ignis on the highway and you’ll soon feel the limits of the 1.2 litre four-cylinder petrol engine. That’s to be expected for a car in this class. I did feel like the handling was a bit loose and the suspension was a little on the harder side.
The Ignis is light (just over 800kg) perhaps in part because everything in the interior is made of plastic. By preference, I like a steering wheel to feel so heavy and solid, that were it to fall off the steering column it would smash my kneecaps into a million pieces. This is not how anything on the Ignis feels.
The screen which runs the entertainment system is appropriately sized for the car (7 inches). However, for the life of me, I could not connect my phone via Bluetooth. All my integration was through an iPhone cable. While it’s possible to do, my firm belief is that if you need a manual to find a specific function, that function does not exist.
Finally, it needs to be mentioned that the Ignis comes up a bit short in the safety department. It has 6 airbags but is missing a few safety features some might expect on a new car like autonomous emergency braking, lane assist and driver fatigue monitoring.
Also – a couple of price hikes to the Ignis in the last few years has meant it’s a bit less competitively priced. A base model will set you back $22,490. As a comparison, the Mazda2 does have a few more safety features and comes in a bit under $2k more.
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