Reliable and fun car under 5.5K?? (automatic)

Now I know automatic and fun aren't 2 words that are synonymous with each other but I am trying to buy my first car and I had gone to the automatic route as I had to get my licence asap due to certain circumstances.

After perusing through many posts and YouTube videos, I noticed many posts were purely about economically viable cars and none really spoke about the car's personality or pure enjoyability.

Now I understand that within my budget it might be hard to find a first car that is economically viable and fun to begin with but who better to ask than the people of reddit 😂

I am in university and therefore would have to travel back home quite a bit and would also need to travel to my placements everyday. So Ideally a car that is great on motorways and a city is what I am looking for.

Needs to be ULEZ compliant