The MINI still has much to offer the posers, with numerous personalization options. In addition to racing stripes and a glut of alloy wheel options, you can have your roof and mirrors in white, black or body colour, depending on which of the 12 exterior colours you select. There a whack of funky interior options on offer too. Its cabin is the most retro-looking of the three, but it still manages to look more futuristic than old-fashioned. It?s rather cramped though and space for rear passengers is extremely tight.

As an overall contender, the MINI offers all the style you could want, while beneath the skin it has the most sophisticated engineering, so you are in fact getting a fair chunk of car for your money.

VW Beetle

The oldest contender here, the ?Millennium Bug? pioneered this retro craze, but it was a fad that failed to garner the mass appeal that the MINI did. Perhaps the styling is just too feminine for most tastes, or maybe it?s because it lacked the driver appeal of the MINI. In fact, we battled to get hold of one for this shoot, which is why you see a pre-facelift model in these pictures. The mechanical content is still the same, in that you get a Golf 4 chassis and the rather dated 85kW 2.0-litre 8-valve engine that still does service certain Golf and Polo models.

The so-called ?New Beetle? might not be too trendy anymore, but its cute and extremely nostalgic styling still wins hearts over and it never fails to garner attention on the streets. And as a tribute to the ?flower power? era in which its ancestor thrived, it even has a vase complete with a plastic flower on the dashboard. While the exterior styling shouts ?old Beetle meets jelly blob?, the interior is not as nostalgic, barring the large speedo and body-coloured inner door panels. It does have the most spacious interior though, with ample rear legroom, although taller people will get claustrophobic.

The engine is sporty in an ?old GTI? kind of way, because that?s exactly where it originates from, so performance is adequate rather than brisk and it has a much heavier fuel appetite than the Mini and 500, while it doesn?t exactly offer a performance advantage. VW does offer a 1.8-litre turbo version, which is a lot more promising on the performance front. Handling is so-so and the ride is rather decent, but you?ll still have more fun driving the MINI and 500.

So the Beetle has a very limited appeal these days and is somewhat dated compared to its latest retro rivals, but it can still pull at the heart strings. But it pulls the purse strings even harder and you?re really not getting much value for your R236K.

So where do they stand?

Now who wins this bambino brawl? It?s a difficult answer to give because these cars are not rational purchase decisions. Were we seeking the best value for money car, we would have put the Fiat 500 up against the Mazda2 and Nissan Micra and with its R180K price tag, the Fiat would have lost sorely.

But these cars are about pure emotion and fashion appeal, and judging by the sentiment expressed in this office, the Fiat 500 is the current flavour of the week, so it narrowly pips the MINI in this test even though the latter offers better value from an engineering point of view.

But what it boils down to is that these three cars all have the potential to elicit love at first site and that, for some reason, does not ask rational questions.