A name, one quickly learns, is nothing to hold against a car. Cars get called all kinds of things that seemed like a good idea at the time and it doesn't automatically reflect badly on them. Didn't Suzuki once produce a vehicle called, teeth-grindingly, the Cappuccino? And was it not, despite the name, a perfectly acceptable fun-wagon? Well, actually, no - it was pretty horrible from every direction. Still, you take my point.

What I'm trying to say is, it should put no barrier between us and the newly upgraded compact MPV from Skokda that the company persists in calling it the Roomster. Calling a car a Roomster is, I think we can agree, marginally sillier even than calling it a Cappuccino. At least a cappuccino is a cup of coffee, whereas a Roomster is...well, what exactly? A piece of Sixties hepcat talk that no hepcat ever used.

It's not a problem, though. You may be required to say it a couple of times in the showroom, but after that, you are never going to use the word Roomster again. The motor industry spends millions researching attention-getting, market-specific labels for their products, only for the majority of us to end up referring to them, almost always, as “the car”.

In the meantime, at least “Roomster” gets the key message across about what this car specialises in and where its main interests lie. It's one of those cars that's actually a haulage van on the quiet, and it contains room enough to stow your children, your children's children and your children's children's bikes.

The name, incidentally, also pays tribute to a whole “room concept” dreamtd up by Skoda for this car. Open the driver's door and it may look like the usual front of a car to you, with its two seats, its steering wheel and its glovebox. But Skoda prefers to think of it as a “driving room”. Similarly, you'll see the three-person bench seat and carpeted area behind the front seats and think, “Ah, the back of the car”. Again, no. Skoda calls this “the living room”, on account of its deep-slung windows, raised platform and stretch-out legroom.

Now, you may quibble and say it lacks some of the traditional living-room signifiers, such as a television, a coffee table and a sofa. Far more worryingly, though, you know how twitchy middle-class homeowners become about rooms. Eventually someone is going to employ a builder to knock their Roomster's driving room and living room together and create a big, live-in kitchen.

At least there is plenty of room upstairs in the meantime. Air is always nice, of course, but the fascination with massive amounts of headroom in modern cars still seems slightly mysterious. One appreciates that low-roofed coupés, in which one's hair is continually becoming Velcro'd to the nylon lining on the ceiling, can be claustrophobic and uncomfortable, not to mention a serious fire hazard if the electro-static starts crackling in a big way.

But the roof of the Roomster arches above you like the ceiling of a cathedral, and, beyond the first few reassuring inches, it's difficult to know who's getting added value out of this voluminous attic space, except someone who is planning to grow a second head directly above their first, or who needs to report for work in a bearskin and can't be bothered with taking it on and off.

Hang on, though - unless you could get permission to raise the roofline slightly, bung a Velux window in and create a fifth bedroom, perhaps with an en suite bathroom...It's certainly something to talk to the planning department about.

Further enriching the silly-name theme, I drove a version of the car called the Roomster Scout, which adds some thick plastic wheel arches, expanded rubbing strips and bigger bumpers to look ready for some dirty, rural action, possibly involving mud. This almost certainly means the Scout will become the Roomster of choice for suburban-dwelling families of four who require it to do nothing more agricultural than carry home the occasional pot-plant from Homebase.

Unfortunately, my Scout had a completely unnecessary red paint job that made it a dead ringer for Postman Pat's van, meaning that I was assailed by a near-constant stream of freelance humorists tenderly inquiring as to the whereabouts of Jess the cat, and if I had anything for Ted Glenn. If I'd had a blue one, I suspect none of this would have happened.

Top speed: 113mph

Acceleration: 0-62 in 11.5 seconds

Average consumption: 53.3mpg

CO2 emissions: 139g/km

Green rating: medium/dark

One careful owner: Anthea Turner

In the glove box: Cadbury's Flake

On the hi-fi: Girls Aloud

Bound for: Wallington

Buy it because: you're looking to expand

Marks out of 10: 7

Price: from £14,220