One good thing about a four-wheel drive is that it can climb out of a marketing hole. This year, Mitsubishi seeks to prove this with the Challenger. Faced with yet another type of off-roader to shoehorn into its forecourt, the Japanese maker has reached for a new label: SUV

SUV means 'sport-utility vehicle' and has become the new black in 4x4 terminology, applied with abandon to the flanks of anything more lumpy than a Mondeo but skimpier than a Range Rover. In reality, SUVs are mongrels with all the kerb-conquering ability of a true off-roader, but less of the social pedigree.

After Vauxhall, Honda and Toyota, BMW now has an SUV in the pipeline, too. The X5 will be here come summer 2000, but the car will be known as an SAV because its think-tank prefers 'activity' to 'utility'. Marketing has ways of making you sleep.

Priced from £20,365, the Challenger sits between the Shogun and the L200 Double Cab, which is the sort of thing you might use to ferry your sister to the local hoe-down. In effect, the price is its USP: walk into a Mitsubishi dealer with £24,495 in your pocket and he'll escort you to a V6 GLS Challenger, bristling with extras.

For a V6 Shogun dressed in the same spec, you'd need another £4,000. But will you feel shortchanged? No. Unlike such 4x4s as the Discovery, Monterey and Shogun, the Challenger has a natural dimensional advantage. Its outline is relatively squat and it feels more likely to hold its own on a long sweeping bend, and less likely to do the lambada if you have to suddenly change lane.

While a traditional 4x4 poses no real change to your driving style - as long as your day job is delivering fridges - the Challenger is simply an elevated family estate. Albeit not so high, the V6 feels pretty mighty, upstaging big-brother Shogun for ride stability and low noise levels, thanks largely to the streamlined body.

Because of the high ground clearance and low roofline though, the seats are set close to the floor, so the driving position is an Easy Rider, low-slung affair. Nevertheless, the seats are comfortable and visibility is safe, with no fat pillars to obscure the view. Space for a clutch foot rest would have been nice, though.

For the off-road test, Mitsubishi took me to a Hampshire hideaway used by the MoD for testing tanks. I drove the car through deep-rutted tracks and water-logged lanes, the kind of places no one will ever take a nice new SUV. That said, all you need do at the start of the course is switch the second gearstick over to four-wheel drive and you're away. If there were any other tank drivers around, I'm sure they'll be asking sergeant why they can't just have one of these. It went everywhere without a squeak.

The diesel option has a turbo-driven 2.5-litre engine that comes equipped with a bonnet nostril, making the car a meaner prospect in the rear-view mirror of a Nissan Micra. However, this is just power dressing - the diesel actually takes 18.5 seconds to reach 62mph. Given that the puniest Micra takes 16.4 seconds, you'll be left red-faced. By contrast, the smooth-bonneted petrol V6, a three-litre with 174bhp to boot, will do 62mph in a trifling 11.6 seconds.

So if you have a Micra and drive in a way to infuriate those behind you, it pays to discern the difference. Nevertheless, when you go off road (someone might), the diesel plays a trump card. It has a more grunty, low-end disposition, so when you're nose-diving in first gear into a ravine, the engine will brake the wheels more effectively. It may be academic, but the existence of many off-road mags shows there are people who like to know such things.

For normal people, however, if being normal means accepting an average fuel figure of 23mpg, the petrol option is the one to go for. The Challenger might be Shogun's baby brother, but it has enough character and driving appeal to make it no second choice. And certainly no poor relation.