Published:
20 June 2023The cabin space of the new 2 is unlikely to make a dent on your first impression, especially now that rivals have grown wider and thus become more practical. Instead, how the interior looks is of far more interest than its basic proportions.
Here is a supermini cabin that avoids the pitfalls of tacky styling or unnecessary clutter, delivering in their place a real sense of imagination and savvy attention to detail. This emanates most obviously from the dashboard, a slab of space-conscious architecture.
None of its hallmarks – unbroken horizontal lines, nicely corralled switchgear, periscoped instrument cluster – are novel, but their integration is rarely so well handled. It comes as no surprise to learn that the car’s designer, the same man who penned the exterior, originally trained in interior design.
The input device for the multimedia system could do with being a little further forward for optimum usability, but that's about the limit of our ergonomic complaints. You sit marginally too high, although well within the segment’s norm, and 20mm of additional elbow room helps to prevent the front of the cabin from feeling full to the brim when two adults are on board.
In the back, the 2 isn't the most spacious supermini: taller passengers will certainly feel uncomfortable after a while. It's no Fiat 500, you understand, but it's in a different league from the Seat Ibiza, for instance.
