Gotta say the Octavia takes some beating - my Dad had the Mk1 when it first came out after i convinced him to try one - he then swapped it for the new Mk2 when that came out in 06. Both have silly amounts of boot space, go very well (and the mk1 is obviously very tuneable due that infamous 20v 1.8T lump and not hard at all to get at least 230bhp from).
What about Accord Type-R? Good on fuel as it's just an N/A 2.0l but it still goes well if you fancy thrashing it and using the V-tec, they're obviously nice and reliable too being a honda.... not something i can honestly say is the case with Fords.....
I'd definitely go and try the Octavia vRS though, for the money (around £5-7k) they are hard to beat and at least have the German build quality these days which i still think is where Fords let themselves down....
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