If you like your round automotive pegs to fit equally round holes, the Qashqai from Nissan is not for you. Bizarre name aside — apparently, it is the name of a wandering tribe — the car is part hatchback, part family saloon, with a little bit of estate and “soft” roader (it can come with all-wheel drive) thrown in for good measure.

Nissan’s marketing team has been hard at work on this one. Not only has it scoured the world for a name no two people will pronounce the same (cash-kai, apparently), it has also decided that it is “urban proof”. Advertisements will feature the car triumphing on the cartoonishly tough streets of an inner city somewhere near you.

None of which should detract from the fact that the Qashqai is not only a very good car, but one that is crucial for Britain’s car-building industry.

Nissan has invested £230 million in its Sunderland plant to build the car, with plans to make 100,000 a year in the North East. It will help to take the plant’s total production to 400,000 a year, up from the present 330,000 annually. As well as securing 1,000 existing jobs, Nissan has taken on an extra 200 staff to cope.

The company hopes to sell about 20,000 Qashqais a year in the UK, three quarters of them two-wheel drive, a quarter with the All Mode 4 x 4 system. The car, which goes on sale in March, comes with a choice of two petrol engines (1.6-litre and 2.0-litre) and two diesel engines (1.5-litre and 2.0-litre) and is priced from £13,499 for the base model small-engined petrol to £23,249 for the all-singing , all-dancing 4WD 2.0 diesel with six-speed automatic transmission.

Nissan expects most cars sold — about 75 per cent — to go not to existing Nissan customers, the easy sales route for car firms relying on loyalty, but to be “conquest” sales — stealing buyers from other car firms.

It might work if reactions to the car on the style-conscious streets of Barcelona, where the car is being launched this week, are anything to go by. While in the car, and stuck in traffic, a ten-year old boy scooted over through the jams, huge pack on his back, to touch the car, stick his head through the driver’s window and, grinning, give a big thumbs-up, saying: “New car? Good! Nice!” His safety-conscious friend, still on the pavement, nodded, clearly agreeing. It looks as if it should be a rough, tough, go-anywhere machine. In fact, the four-wheel drive system is strictly for the road, to give greater grip in the wet or in snow. The system for the most part runs only the front two wheels, then gradually and automatically delivers more drive to the rear wheels as conditions worsen, up to a maximum of 50 per cent drive to the rear.

With Qashqai, Nissan does not want the car seen as another go-anywhere off-roader and so get mired into the anti-4 x 4 debate hampering 4 x 4 sales. The panoramic glass roof makes the car feel very light and airy inside. You sit higher up than in a hatch or saloon and as a result get an improved view of the road ahead. Even so, the high door lines make you feel enclosed and safe. In the back, luggage space starts at 460 litres with all the seats in place but expands to 1,513 litres with seats folded.

At 100mph, the 2.0-litre petrol is quiet, refined and relaxing. In Barcelona’s rush-hour traffic the car’s “urban” credentials come to the fore. Without being a 4 x 4 bully, the Qashqai is just beefy enough to win roadspace and respect from other cars, all of which makes traffic-jam driving easier. The six-speed gearbox is smooth, although drivers used to five- speed gearboxes might have trouble finding sixth. And being a Nissan, it is well built; you feel that everything fits as it should.

Nissan has come a long way since cars such as the early Almera that ran the risk of boring people to death. Its biggest-selling cars have always been reliable, if bland. Now perhaps it has a car that, as well as carrying on its traditional strengths of dependability, might also have the sort of urban funk and “street cred” to do those strengths justice.

Specification

Car Nissan Qashqai

Engine 2.0-litre four cylinder petrol

Transmission six-speed manual gearbox driving front wheels only

Economy 26.2mpg in town, 41.5mpg motorway, 34.4mpg overall

Performance top speed 119mph, 0-62mph in 10sec



CO2 emissions 199g/km

Price £18,874 as tested