Price: ¯¿½16,499
On sale: Now
0-60mph: 10.5 seconds; top speed 115mph
Average fuel: 42.8mpg
Standard equipment: five seats, power steering, ESP, remote central locking, six-speed manual gearbox, air-con, driver, passenger and side airbags, CD player, electric front/rear windows, immobiliser, alloy wheels, electric mirrors, front seat belt pretensioners.
Tiscali verdict: 8/10 Nissan's family-hatch crossover crosses over with style. Drives well, too.
It's not so much the cars that are interesting in this job as the words used to sell them - and 2007's been a wonderful year for mucking about with automotive etymology.
The trend for roundly dissing the essential laws of grammar continues apace. Witness the arrival of the new, lower-case smart fortwo, the superfluously apostrophised (not to mention heinously uncapitalised) Kia cee'd and the - try this for size, Lynn Truss - equally uncapitalised freetrack. Ironically enough, this model comes from SEAT, the same brand that gets fidgety when the media fails to spell its name entirely in capitals as a reflection of its true acronymic status.
In the coming months, we'll soon have the Kia pro_cee'd, the world's first model to sport a sinking hyphen, while Hyundai plans a VerzCruz, which sounds like a cross between an Easyjet destination and an emergency medical manoeuvre. Nissan is talking about creating a thing called a Bevel, which as far as I can recall was something I tried to do in woodwork classes in 1977, with equally ungainly results.
But Nissan is no stranger to mental monikers, as this is the maker that unleashed the Big Thumb truck and the Bongo Friendee. More recently, it gave us the Qashqai, which, as anyone who plays Scrabble will know, drives roughshod over the rule that you can't use a Q unless you have a U to follow it. The name comes, apparently, from an Iranian nomadic tribe, so don't scoff.
Not that the customers have. The Qashqai's a cash cow for Nissan - 10,000 have rolled out from Sunderland already and the European order books are bulging. Half of all buyers go for the 1.5-litre diesel, while another 20% opt for the perkier two-litre model, tested here. The difference, housekeeping-wise, is noticeable, given the ¯¿½1 per litre punishment we're enduring: while this 2.0-litre dCi engine produces 150hp at 4000rpm and 320Nm of torque at 2000rpm, thus returning 42.8 mpg and CO2 emissions of 174g/km (when fitted with manual transmission and in 2WD configuration) the smaller 106bhp diesel sips just 52.3mpg overall.
The trade off comes behind the wheel - this model being far more a driver's car. Usually, I'd suggest sticking with the smaller engine option, but that would be overlooking a central point here. You see, amazing as it may seem, what we have here is a "crossover" model - a car that attempts to straddle both categories of 4x4ish SUV AND family hatchback. But here's the twist: it does it extremely well. Not only does the Qashqai deliver on that all-important elevation and chunkiness we increasingly desire, it also drives off the designer's page with more than a measure of finesse and charm. From behind the wheel, it's simply a great drive.
This will be music to the ears of Nissan's strategists: having flunked it in Europe with a traditional family hatch that can take on the likes of Ford's Focus, GM's Astra and Renault's Megane, Nissan has pulled something inventive out of the bag and proved it can be a realistic, driveable alternative. As part of the panel on What Diesel Car? magazine, I gave this car a gong as the best SUV in the market this year. And having revisited it six months later, I'd say it would give many traditional hatchbacks a run for their money, delivering roadholding, keen steering and a high-quality ride in one neat package.
And if you REALLY still want a four-wheel drive sticker, you can opt for this as extra, though it'll suck your fuel average down to 40.9mpg, and set you back ¯¿½1,400 in the process.
Qashqai might not have the most elegant of names, but it's proof that today's multi-niche models can tick all the boxes - from practicality to build quality, without forgetting the box marked flair.
Want to know more about the Qashqai? Go to the tiscali road test here
