Im only basing it on my own experiences, I know its tempting to buy the newest car you can and at the time I had the cash in the bank for a brand new one. However a 1.2 is always going to be a temporary car until you can afford something quicker as they are insurance/ fuel friendly. Unless its a long term vehicle which i doubt finance is generally to be avoided, you can dump aload of money very easily.
A tidy ph2 dynamique is by no means a banger, quite a nice car for a first car imo (I had a shed of a H reg Polo beforehand) and like I said I bought my 51 plate 1.2 16v to run for a year as a no claims builder, it was great fun to drive, cheap to run, still looked ok, and I sold it for what I paid for it a year and 10k miles down the line. Result 1 yrs NCB get that £5k out the bank and spend it on something worthwhile.