What are your feelings about tumble-flaps? I confess I have not really had strong opinions either way - or none I have felt able to announce. In fact, if pressed, I probably would have said that tumble-flaps was an idea for a children's television programme which, for various reasons, never quite made it past the committee stage.
But that was before driving the new Audi A2 FSI, which threatens to hand the tumble-flap a whole new pan-European prominence, such that none of us need ever be puzzled or embarrassed by one again.
The A2 is the smallest Audi money can buy. One always associated this refined German company in the main with superior, touchingly unvulgar saloons - leather-enhanced executive toys for the kind of executive who was rather scornful about toys in the first place. The A2, then, came as something of a surprising add-on at the bottom of the range - a bid for position in the burgeoning city runabout market and a car that the executive owner of an A8 may well have looked at twice, though only prior to handing its keys to the nanny.
The A2 inherited many of its bigger brothers' clothes, however, and wore them well. It had an understated, though reassuringly expensive charm. Unlike a startlingly large number of its rivals in the small family car sector, it did not look like a novelty eggcup. It seemed a less flimsy proposition than other popular compacts made by Vauxhall and Citroën, and more likely to withstand a sideswipe from a milk float - though, as was noted, while stationary the A2 could be rocked by the motion of its own solitary windscreen wiper.
Still, because it was an Audi, you could take some comfort from the thought that the car's most essential bolts had been fully tightened by a trained operative in a well-lit factory and would be unlikely to come undone again in your lifetime. So even though one occasionally wondered whether a decent wind would send it backwards, the car had brand authority as standard. What it didn't have, until now, was a tumble-flap.
This FSI version of the car puts that omission right. FSI refers to the new petrol-injection technology that Audi originally developed for its racing team, which drove all over the opposition at Le Mans. The racing team, it is probably unnecessary to point out, were not behind the wheel of an A2. They were driving the specially tailored Audi R8, which has less space for shopping than the A2 but indubitably bursts faster out of the pit lane and corners a lot tighter.
Now Audi has decided to plug an adapted version of the FSI technology into the humble A2 - which means that what was once exclusive to people in flame-retardant boiler suits is now freely available to the likes of you and me, with our Asda bags and our booster seats.
Let's be clear, though, that the resulting A2 is not some souped-up monster with hair-trigger acceleration, designed to spoil the frustrated Colin McCrae in today's parent. Nor does Audi's decision to grant the gift of FSI to the A2, ahead of its bigger cars, reflect any anxiety the company has about the increasing competitiveness of urban driving. It's simply that, with the FSI system's cunning (here it comes) tumble-flap electronically controlling the amount of air which enters the combustion chamber, power and efficiency are cleverly boosted, so that the engine works harder while consuming less petrol.
Thus the 1.6 engine will pull the car up the road with more enthusiasm than the original 1.4 model, but not to the point of draining the colour from your face or causing your passengers to scramble around looking for a fire extinguisher (not supplied). The greater excitement lies in watching the petrol gauge refuse to move, for journey after journey - bad news for your Shell Pluspoints, but good news, perhaps, for your overall sense of well-being. (Presumably Audi calculates that the prospect of long-term savings on fuel might ease the pinch of paying a premium in order to own an Audi.)
The shame is that, in creating a petrol engine that mimics the best aspect of a diesel (its frugal consumption), Audi has also built one that mimics a diesel's worst aspect - its noise. When idling, the A2 FSI throbs like a school minibus. Still, the cabin is pleasant enough to take your mind off this - if a little narrow. (I actually managed to crack the side of my head against the door frame while pulling off a kerb - something of a first.)
The dashboard offers the traditional Audi virtues, being clear, unostentatious, and so solidly constructed it could well have been made by a company that does bank vaults.
Only the tragic absence of respectable cup-holders needs to be addressed. The A2 tries to palm us off with a pair of shallow mouldings on the back of the door to the glove compartment. Far from being appropriate for the long-term securing of hot liquid comestibles, these skimpy devices are actually designed to drench your gear-stick in coffee at the first twitch of the steering wheel. Looks like another job for the tumble-flap.
The lowdown
Audi A2 1.6 FSI
Price: £13,895
Top speed: 126mph
Acceleration: 0-62 in 9.8 seconds
Consumption: 47.9mpg (combined)
At the wheel: Martin Brundle
On the stereo: David Gray
En route for:Ely
