I, until a few weeks ago drove a classic mini with classic car insurance of £640 a year.

for a 18/19 year old it was a bargain (limited miles though), i got a letter through the post telling me i cant renew with footman james again (no more young drivers policy?) and the best quote i can now find is £1200+.

so why drive a car i only just fit in and doesn't carry any of my mates when i can get a bigger car with the same sort of insurance cost.

so locosters, i want a new car. i was thinking along the lines of a volvo 850, 850R if the insurance companies agree. they are quite cheap at the moment and do 0-60 in around 7 seconds, hold everything i need and i suspect it could be a future classic (the 850 R, and 850 T-5R)

are there any other cars similar you can think of, i quite like the boxy look of them...

im still in shock from finding out my insurance would double on the mini...

I doubt youll get insured on an R... My dads got one- Ive tried to get insurance every year since I passed my test- Not happening!
I bought a Polo at the start of the year (on my 20th) and it costs me just over £1k to insure for the year- Not that cheap but its a 1.6 and about the most fun I could have due to insurance .
HTH, Mark.

Have you tried peter james? they are still covering under 21's, and footman james may in a month. Apparently cheap classic insurance has resulted in rather a large number of claims from U21's, many in mini's. So the "yound drivers" quota is full at the moment. In fact peter s atylor (Hove) may be handy, try some other classic insurers.
I suspect anything you aspire to will have a rather hefty insurance cost, the mini is still likely to be the cheapest by quite a margin.

my son has a volvo C70 T5 2002 , had it 6 weeks, he is 23 and paid £1,300. Would be very very suprised if you could get insurance for a 850 T5 any cheaper.