The Saab 9-3 Turbo X Sportwagon - now, that's a proper name for a car, isn't it? None of your feminine whimsy there - just a hearty compound of unashamed maleness, three parts mathematical equation to two parts underarm deodorant to one part can of strong lager.

Imagine the consequences for the traditional pub conversation:

“What are you driving these days?”

“Me? Oh, a Saab 9-3 Turbo X Sportwagon.”

Why, the keys virtually jangle themselves.

Or they would, if the car came with keys. It doesn't. It comes with a thumb-sized rubber stub that (in keeping with one of Saab's time-worn eccentricities) you plug into a socket down to your left, near the handbrake. What with metal-free substitutes such as this one, credit card-style key replacements and entirely keyless entry systems, it's clear that the traditional car key is under threat like nothing else in our times, with the possible exception of Luton Town Football Club. What will the men of the future jangle? A terrifying chasm opens up for the male psyche.

Meanwhile, you are looking at the Saab 9-3 Turbo X Sportwagon and perhaps thinking to yourself, “Sportwagon? They mean estate, surely.” But no. They most emphatically do not mean estate car. Estate car they most emphatically do not mean. Large parts of the car industry turn out to be in flight from this passion-killing expression - sensing, perhaps, that something about the term “estate”, when hitched to the term “car”, tips a mug of cold coffee on to life's cream-coloured carpet.

Audi goes with the word Avant. BMW prefers “Touring”. (It's not a BMW 3 Series estate, it's a BMW 3 Series Touring.) Saab, from Sweden, joins Peugeot and Alfa Romeo in opting for the exotic, continental-flavoured Sportwagon - the best of the available cover-ups so far, in my view.

The thinking seems to be that, if you're in an estate car, you can only ever be doing something dutifully domestic and drudgy, probably incorporating a recycling centre or an out-of-town shopping complex - or possibly even both in the same trip, if the estate car in question is a Volvo V70. If you're in a Sportwagon, on the other hand, then clearly you are either on your way to, or back from, Switzerland. You are fulfilling a diary of almost ceaseless activity involving, in all probability, skis and paragliding equipment, not to mention innumerable alfresco dining opportunities.

The glamour of the Saab 9-3 Turbo X Sportwagon goes beyond a carefully chosen euphemism, though. When it came to strapping a turbo charger to ordinary production cars, Saab was a pioneer. This new car (2.6 V6 engine, “limited edition”, black paint only) harks back to the great early turbo-charged Saabs - the Saab 99 Turbo of 1977 and the Saab 900 Aero Turbo 16 which, for Saab fans, evokes the 1980s as effectively as any picture of Mel and Kim.

The new model's unique proposition is a highly refined all-wheel drive system, the full technical understanding of which will test your knowledge of “electronic rear limited-slip differential” and “wet multi-plate clutch units”.

Suffice to say that, as a result of this, the 9-3 X Turbo a) goes blisteringly fast and b) remains, unlike most cars of this shape, incredibly stable in and out of corners. That's got to be good news for car-bound dogs everywhere. No more sliding helplessly across the boot in a scuttle of paws, and slamming your nose into the sidewindow.

But it's also good news for people who know, deep down, that they need an estate car, but feel rather depressed about it because they reason that buying one is effectively signing a letter of resignation on behalf of their souls. (These same people worry further that, soon after buying their estate, they will find themselves putting a grey carry-box on the top of it - at which point everything really will be over.)

Such people will twist the rubber stub in the Saab's ignition and hear something that you don't associate with estate cars - the rousing top-note and burble of a conscientiously tuned engine. They'll be able to peel away from standing as if they were in a sports car. And then they will be able to take their rubbish to the dump.

The Saab 9-3 Turbo X may inject a new and unforeseen level of covetousness into the battered and downtrodden estate-car experience. It may even be that almost unimaginable thing - an estate car that your neighbours are quietly jealous of. Never refer to it as an estate car, though. It's a Sportwagon; nothing more, nothing less.

Top speed: 155mph
Acceleration: 0-60 in 5.6 seconds
Average consumption: 26.2mpg
CO2 emissions: 253g/km
Eco rating: 4/10
One careful owner: Damon Hill
On the stereo: The Fratellis
In the glovebox: gloves
Bound for: Silverstone
Buy it because: you're not quite done
Marks out of 10: 8

Price: £31,820