Fire up the... Suzuki Kizashi

THERE is, thanks to mankind's obsession with pigeonholing absolutely everything, a distinct heirachy when it comes to buying a new car.

Whether it's the new Mclaren at the very top end of the motoring marketplace, or the parsimonious Nissan Pixo at the bottom, everything is divided up into convenient classes and segments, so that any particular car is roughly the same size and shape as the ones it's competing against. Anything that breaks the rules just confuses Britain's notoriously fussy buyers.

So can Suzuki's Kizashi, which the Japanese are considering bringing to our shores, carve a niche? It is, after all, an unusual prospect; a Mondeo-style saloon that's smaller than a Mondeo, or an Insignia, or indeed any of the mid-range repmobiles usually found lurking on the outside lanes of Britain's motorways. It honestly could go either way, being either usefully smaller when it comes to parking and navigating the urban jungle, or not as capacious when you call on it to be a cargo freighter. Whatever you make of it, it's a bit bigger than, say, Volkswagen's Jetta but not quite the full Passat.

What it does do though is a passable impression of Doctor Who's TARDIS, because while its smaller exterior does translate into an air of agility from behind the wheel, your passengers in the back seats will swear they've stepped into a larger car. The interior might be a little darker than I'd like, thanks to the black materials used throughout, but boy is it spacious.

It also carries off the clever trick of looking a bit like every other contemporary saloon you've clapped eyes on - the front's got a hint of Golf to it, and the side profile a hint of Mondeo, but again that's not a bad thing.

Expect to pay £21,995 for the automatic, four-wheel-drive version they're bringing to this country's roads, and while I can't see it wiping out the Mondeo's dominance there's definitely a gap in the marketplace for this kind of car.

If you're looking for a sturdy saloon which is a smidgen smaller than the rest of the pack, go and start pestering your local dealer for it.