TRIED AND TESTED

Sean O’Grady on the Nissan Qashqai N-Connecta the latest iteration of a family car that has stood the test of time

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Like other long-running model nameplates before it – Range Rover, Toyota Corolla, VW Golf – the Nissan Qashqai has been constantly evolving, being honed to purpose over successive generations such that it has settled into a comfortable familiarity in the lives of millions of families. It’s had fewer faults than most, and there’s a reason why it is still trusted, sells so well and is such a common sight on the road.

It is, in fact, in danger of being rather taken for granted, albeit it still commands a substantial market share. Now cosily commonplace, once it was shockingly novel. The Qashqai did, after all, invent an entirely new market sector when the first iteration was launched back in 1997 – the “crossover”, a cross between a family hatch and an SUV, more versatile than a traditional family car and more compact and efficient than a true go-anywhere off-roader.

The neat, well-balanced styling has been revised many times since, as has everything else, but the basic concept has stood the test of time, and has attracted virtually every other manufacturer to pile in to the point where it is now a heavily overcrowded market. If imitation is the purest form of flattery, then Nissan should take some comfort and confidence in that.

We’ve previously featured in these pages the latest, rather idiosyncratic version of the Qashqai – the “e-Power” models, which use petrol to generate onboard electricity so that the car drives as smoothly as a true battery-electric vehicle, but with a more acceptable range and none of the usual pure-electric anxiety about running out of fuel.