There does seem to be an element of the quote that goes beyond the simple insurance group of the car. For instance, the quote for me on a reasonable 3-4 thousand pound car was the same as the quote for my 2006 Honda Civic 2.2 i-CTDi - i.e. the quote didn't seem to go up so much based on the higher power/value.

I think it was [TW]Fox who was on here (not seen him for a while, but I think he has a 530i Sport now) found insuring a Mondeo wasn't any great expense more than the normal array of typical first/second cars, and in some cases, a fair amount cheaper. I think his interpretation of it was that less people of the age group he was in at the time choose a Mondeo, and as a result, less crashed them - positive things in the eyes of insurance companies.

Same went for the lads on TopGear - one of the cars they chose was a Volvo based on the very same reasoning.... so it isn't surprising that you got a reasonably cheap quote on a new A3, because very few people who have just passed their test (mainly 17/18 year olds, but not in this particular case) have the ability to buy such a car.

I was lucky, I had 3 years NCB from a motorbike (where it was fairly inexpensive to build up NCB) which I then transferred to the car, so cut my first car insurance policy value in half (3 years = 50% discount with the insurer I was with).