Key facts:
Model tested: Honda Jazz 1.3 i-VTEC HX IMA hybrid
Price: £17,995
Date tested: December 2010
Road tester: Martin Gurdon

The Honda Jazz Hybrid is intended to attract younger buyers to a brand that's traditionally been the preserve of those in their fifties and sixties.

Years ago Honda tried hard to cultivate a younger image, since its technically clever, rather modern cars were often favoured by older drivers.

It could churn out supercars like the NS-X, but Honda's image as purveyor of senior citizen's wheels persisted.

Then it launched the Jazz hatchback. The tall, upright, brilliantly packaged Jazz was a modern supermini, ideal for small families. Also very roomy, easy to get in and out of, and utterly reliable it also proved ideal for older people, with the average buyer aged over 63.

Now Honda has launched a hybrid Jazz, whose lower emissions and greater economy should be even kinder to squeezed fixed-income pensions.

With some hybrids, all the extra batteries and control equipment pinch interior space, but the current Jazz shares the same basic structure as the Insight hybrid, so is engineered from the outset as a petrol/electric model. The result is a car with a still capacious boot.

Honda has slightly tweaked its cleverly flexible interior, with things like a rear seat backrest with more adjustment. It remains very user friendly, but Honda's habit of using rather hard, cheap-feeling materials remains, although top spec Jazz Hybrid buyers will get leather seats.

The Jazz Hybrid has the same mechanicals as the Insight, which means a 1,339cc petrol engine mated to an electric motor/generator, which pumps in an extra 14bhp, and can, occasionally, power the car on its own.

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The end result has a 109mph top speed, hits 62mph in 12.3secs, produces 104g/km of CO2 and returns a combined 62.4mpg. These figures are impressive, but a lot of cheaper diesel superminis can beat them, and have manual gearboxes, which some drivers prefer - the Jazz Hybrid is CVT automatic only.

The gearbox is efficient, but causes the car to rev like mad when accelerating hard, although the driver can also control it with steering column paddles.

So the CVT often makes the Jazz sound busier than it actually is, especially on motorways, but most of the time it's perfectly relaxed and civilised.

As an aid to economy, the instruments change colour like a lava lamp, from green for light-footed driving, to blue when caution is thrown to the winds. We found staying green took some concentration.

Honda has tweaked the suspension and electric power steering, which is no longer stodgy and lifeless, and the car now handles and corners tidily, if without obvious elan. The ride is firm, but comfortable.

The Jazz's winning combination of space, accessibility, brilliant reliability and high resale values remain as before, and the hybrid set up brings a useful dollop of efficiency to the mix.

However, it is also built in Japan, and currency values make it expensive. For all its virtues, £16,000-£18,000 is a lot to pay for any small car. However, the only key rival, Toyota's Auris HSD, is even more costly, but not as brilliantly packaged.