Nissan Qashqai
£14,599
Miles per gallon: 52.3
Seats: 5
Good for: Hard sellers
Bad for: Poor spellers
If your name is Niamh Featherstonehaugh (pronounced 'Neve Fanshaw') and you're from Hawick ('Hoik'), you'll know exactly the problems the Qashqai ('Cash-kai') is likely to encounter. It sounds like a cross between an exotic fruit and a suburb of Beijing, but it is in fact an all-new crossover car from Nissan. Sensing a gap in the market for a compact family car which blends the image of a coupe with the interior space of a hatchback and the strength of a 4x4, the Japanese marque has come up with a compact family car that, er, looks like a coupe crossed with a hatchback with the trappings of a 4x4 mixed in.
Before we pull away from the kerb, let's consider that bizarre name for a moment. It hasn't been made up in an attempt to redress the iniquities of the alphabet by bumping up the lexicon's Q count (the Qvale Mangusta is the only other car that starts with a Q), but comes from an Iranian desert-dwelling nomadic tribe. But that's as exotic as it gets. It was designed in London, developed in Cranfield and built in Sunderland.
The naming bug has clearly got under the skin of Nissan's bigwigs, as they have also used the Qashqai's arrival to introduce their new (baffling) badging system. Now, rather than having a simple grade S, SE or SX vehicle, you have a Visia, Acenta or Tekna. Got it? No? Well, don't worry, as these words won't actually appear on the car. Clear as mud...
But at least the car itself makes sense. The first impression is that it's a small-boned SUV - now an acronym for Singularly Unpopular Vehicle. But the Qashqai isn't the usual in-your-face road hog. It's quite small, for a start, about the same size as a Ford Focus, and it is aimed at city families. The press release describes it as '100% urbanproof' - and after a week on the capital's mean streets it hadn't been clamped, keyed or even had gum wedged into its keyhole, so maybe it is.
The car splits neatly into two parts. The lower half suggests strength and ability thanks to its large, pronounced wheel arches, purposeful stance and elevated ground clearance, while the top half and interior are light and open. The high roof gives you a very upright seating position, which makes you feel like a child feigning attention during double maths but also gives you a pleasantly commanding view of the potholes ahead. The car comes loaded with all the usual gizmos you'd expect, and for an extra £700 you can treat yourself to a vast panoramic glass roof which offers the backseat passengers unrivalled views of railway bridges and trees. But as you'll probably be sitting in the front, where it makes no difference, I'd save the cash.
Of the 130,000 Qashqais that'll be sold by the end of the year, a quarter will have a diesel engine - and the one I tested offered an astonishingly smooth and efficient ride. This is due, apparently, to the Piezoelectric Bosch technology which, to quote the manual, 'gives precise fuel-injection control allowing a five squirt cycle: two pre-squirts, one main squirt and two post-squirts'. Sounds as if the engineers have been watching too much Graham Norton.
