You know you’ve cracked it when you can put a Sport badge on a car which takes 14.4 seconds to get to 60mph.

But that’s what Skoda have done with the Citigo. And guess what? It really is a sporty model, too.

I’m not just talking about the rally car stripes and the sexy wheels. I mean it rides and handles like a sports car and I was truly amazed when I found out it took so long to get to 60mph.

It feels much faster and would certainly match a lot of proper hot-hatches on a 0 to 30mph sprint.

Citigo is Skoda’s city car and a sibling of the Volkswagen Up! and SEAT Mii. I’m not a fan of any of the three names (Up is silly, Mii is odd and Citigo sounds like it should be applied to a moped) but if pressed I’d say Citigo was the best.

It’s a successful car. Citigo is small but feels much larger inside. It’s the first Skoda to wear the company’s new badge, the first to feature the new Skoda family styling and it’s even the first Skoda to have head-thorax-side airbags.

And it feels much bigger and gutsier than you might imagine of a small Skoda.

But the Sport version really brings it to life and at less than £11,000 it’s still very much an affordable motor but one packed with features such as alloy wheels, spoilers front and rear, sports suspension, leather trim, four additional speakers and just enough red stitching to be cool without being silly.

It’s claimed to be the smallest Skoda since the company gave up making motorcycles in the early-1900s but it’s the most cleverly packaged without a doubt. It’s said in the industry that the best engineers prefer working on the smallest cars, because they have chance to come up with plenty of ingenious solutions and they have been hard at work here.

At 3.56 metres long and 1.65 metres wide it’s one of the smallest four-seat cars you can buy but it feels very spacious and well-planted. It comes about as close to the Tardis ‘small outside, big inside’ principle of the original Mini as any other car ever has. It really will fit four adults of average height inside with ease and all the clever little storage ideas to make everyday life easier amount to a real breath of fresh air.

A couple of niggles, though. A sixth gear would have quietened it down still further at motorway speeds and a coat hanger in the back seats would have prevented me throwing a suit on the backseats.

There are some nice touches, though. Take the elasticated net pockets on the sides of the front seats for example. Putting drinks, snacks or gadgets in there means that precious space doesn’t have to be lost in the door pockets or centre console. And as anyone who’s ever bought a single bag of shopping, put it down to roam free in the passenger foot well and then discovered an unfortunate milk/loaf interface when they got home will agree, a neat little fold-out hook on the front of the glove box is a brilliant idea.

The test version was white (most Citigos seem to be in green) which looked cool with stripes and a lowered suspension.

It’s available as a three or five-door hatch and the trim is based on the Citigo SE. Under the bonnet of this seemingly powerful special model is a frugal 1.0 MPI 60PS petrol engine mated to a five-gear manual transmission.

I loved the black 15in ‘Auriga’ design alloy wheels, fog lights, tinted ‘sunset’ windows, the suspension which lowers the ride height by 15mm and a bespoke styling kit which includes a rear diffusor.

Citigo Sport (or SPORT, as Skoda insist on shouting it) is available in three colours; Candy White with red stripes, Tornado Red with black stripes and Deep Black with red stripes.

Inside the Citigo Sport, customers receive distinctive black and red sports seats, a three-spoke leather steering wheel with red stitching, leather handbrake and gearstick gaiter with red stitching and matching floor mats. A two-tone grey and black dashboard and unique grey decor instruments add to the car’s exclusive appeal.

A highlight of the Citigo Sport’s interior is the dashboard-mounted Personal Infotainment Device (PID). Featuring a five-inch touch-screen, this sleekly styled multi-function technology comes as standard on this model.

The PID includes satellite navigation, a hands-free phone connection, vehicle and trip information, plus a media player which can be synced to an external music device.

Skoda Citigo Sport three-door 60ps

PRICE: £10,290. Citigo starts at £7,990
ENGINE: A 999cc three cylinder unit generating 60ps via five-speed gearbox and front wheel drive
PERFORMANCE: Top speed 99mph, 0 to 60mph in 14.4 seconds
COSTS: combined 62.8mpg
EMISSIONS: 105g/km
INSURANCE: Group 1
WARRANTY: Three years, 60,000 miles