Vitara made for worldwide role

Which brings us to the new Vitara from Suzuki, sixth generation of a car that has been loved and respected round the world and for which its maker has high hopes.

After driving the car it looks as though Suzuki's hopes are justified; the Vitara looks good (with shades of the upmarket Range Rover Evoque) and drives well, with a mature feel that's helped by work on the suspension over a series of demanding roads in the UK.

The new Vitara is designed in Japan and built in Hungary and has the sort of cosmopolitan feel that fits it for a worldwide role and lynchpin of a company that sold a record near three million cars last year.

Never mind that telling the world about the newcomer with a slogan 'grab your Field' doesn't mean anything sensible to a British ear, the Vitara begins to make sense from the moment you slip into an interior clearly meant to take the knocks of living in the real world.

That will probably mean the school run, where this easy driving car will prove an undemanding taxi, and might extend to gentle off road work, which the all-wheel drive version will take in its stride.

That will cost from £19,799 for a Vitara with 1.6 litre petrol engine, likely to be comfortably the bigger seller over the car with a diesel of the same size and power, but coming with a hefty £1,800 premium.

Prices start at a tempting £13,999 for a petrol engined car in SZ4 trim and front wheel drive only. That comes with alloy wheels, DAB radio and Bluetooth, cruise control and automatic air conditioning.

So hardly a basic spec, but it can be added to with a £1,500 upgrade to SZ-T trim that, principally, adds satellite navigation or, for £4,000 there is the top SZ5 trim with brighter headlights, adaptive cruise control, shinier alloys, big double sunroof, keyless entry and forward facing radar that starts braking for you if you get too close to the car in front.

The car comes with a can of tyre sealant as standard but a space saver 'proper' tyre will be available from your dealer for about £110.

It fits under the boot floor and is a useful confidence booster in a car designed to go gently off road.

Like rivals in this smaller SUV part of the market, you can personalise your Vitara with dual tone paint (£800) and different colours for the plastic parts of the dashboard, so your car can be as vivid on the inside as it is outwardly. But only if you want it to be!

On the more practical level, the new Vitara is up there with the best of the bunch for tailpipe emissions and there can't be any complaints about thirst, with a healthy 61mpg showing on the trip computer after a drive up and down a Portuguese test route on the press launch. That was in the diesel, which was a bit noisy with a cold engine, but soon settled down to a distant hum and pulled strongly in the higher gears along near deserted motorways.

The ride, finessed in the UK remember, was good to excellent.

A petrol engined model was quieter from the get-go but needed more gear-changing than the diesel. Even so, it made a fine case for itself as the version to buy, in the least expensive trim level.

So Suzuki is well placed to benefit from the harsh realities of a world where value counts.

By Ian Donaldson