We went through this a while back with our grandson. He also needed to carry musical stuff - guitars, amps etc. In the end he just had to bite the bullet and pay up. He had an old Nissan Micro, followed by our old 9-3 and just pushed things in. If you mention “music” or “entertainment” insurance will be more difficult, if not impossible. Even my wife had trouble getting insurance on the Carlsson, as a professional singer, and that was as standard. There was/is no hope of her ever getting the Hirsch upgrade.
The other issue that was mentioned to our grandson was how big the car was, and the number of friends that could be crammed in. In theory, the smaller the better, which doesn’t match with carrying stuff. But I have head of anomalies where insurers hav insufficient data on unusual cars for young people. One person on the forums found a Saab 9000 was cheap for a new driver, possibly because no young driver had crashed one!
When our two were young, a Maestro was quite cheap to insure. The slightly bigger hatchback might be an issue now, but what about “ugly”? The sort of car that’s “uncool” for teenagers, like a Renault Kangoo, Citroen Berlingo or Cactus.
