THIS is the new Nissan Pulsar. Will it succeed?

SADLY Nissan's official pictures of its new Pulsar weren't released in time for this week's Champion column, but here is the company's new hatchback hopeful in all its glory.

What can you expect? Well, it's an all-new hatchback using an entirely turbocharged range of engines - a 1.2 litre petrol lump, good for 115bhp, a 1.5 litre turbodiesel which thumps out 110bhp, and - most excitingly of all - a 190bhp 1.6 litre which lands beneath the Pulsar's bonnet early next year.

There's no word yet on prices, but Nissan reckon they can conquer what your fleet manager unceremoniously calls ‘the C-Segment’ - as in the hotly-contested territory currently fought over by the likes of the Focus, Golf and Astra - by blending gadgets on the inside with nifty design detailing on the outside. In the company's own words, Nissan is taking over where the Almera left off six years ago by "using the same design approach and original thinking that produced the Qashqai, X-Trail and Note".

  
Will it work, or will the Pulsar end up stealing sales from Nissan's own Juke and Qashqai models? Only time will tell, but I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the firm's family-friendly contender.

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Is it possible to buy a £1,000 car in just one morning?

SIR BOB Hoskins used the long Good Friday to stop terrorists tormenting his gangland empire. I used it to find a cheap used car which – I hope – won’t blow up as soon as it’s delivered to its lucky new owner.

Thanks largely to an unfortunate incident involving a Suzuki Wagon R, a wet night and a kerb, my girlfriend’s mother is suddenly in need of a cheap secondhand motor. That’s why I was given the task of sourcing a cheap ‘n’ cheerful replacement which would be practical and easy to live with.

Surely not a challenge for Mr Champ Motoring Correspondent, whose day job is talking about clapped out old cars and who’ll happily waste an hour at Wetherspoon’s spending an imaginary budget on automotive tat? However, this particular mission involved spending someone else’s actual money on a real car, and I had just a grand to play with. Worse still, I had just one day in which to nail the deal – a bank holiday, no less. Is it possible to find a cheap used car, on a day when almost everything’s shut, before the sun sets?

The first thing I discounted was asking my usual pals if they had anything cheap knocking around, on the basis I didn’t want to lumber my girlfriend’s mother with a mouldy MG Midget or an Austin Princess that needs a light restoration. The big car supermarkets were out too, not offering enough choice of cars costing hundreds rather than thousands, and most of the private deals belonged to folk who – quite rightly – would much rather spend their bank holiday arguing with family or traipsing around IKEA.

In the end, salvation came from the places I’d expected to be the first to shut up shop for the Bank Holiday – small dealerships, who had plenty of gems knocking around if you dug deep enough. Among the cars within a 15-mile radius of our Maghull starting point were a 12-year-old Fiat Punto with plenty of life left in it, a Peugeot 206 which offered a low mileage and lots of history for a tiny bit beyond the budget, and a Toyota Corolla which had just done its 100,000th mile without so much as a hiccup.

In the end, the car of choice went to a family hatch I’ve always had plenty of time for – a Peugeot 306, which came with six months’ tax, a full MOT, and a more than healthy stash of service history. Yours for just £750, which proves you CAN pick up a decent secondhand car on a Bank Holiday if you dig deep enough.

So the better half’s happy that a reliable, affordable, family-friendly hatchback is now taking up the spot the misfortunate Suzuki once occupied. That the 306 has always been hoot to drive has nothing to do with it…

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The Focus is (still) the best family all rounder

THE OTHER day I stayed in a hotel room with the world’s most sophisticated shower as its top trump.

I was briefly amazed by the way it had mood lighting, an inbuilt radio to allow you to tune in to The Archers mid-rinse, and an in-shower telephone so you could ring your mum to counter those horrendous I’ve-forgotten-my-towel scenarios you only ever encounter once you’re truly ensconsed in the wash. However, the hotel itself didn’t have a bar, so it failed immediately in my imaginary Tripadvisor review.

Another suite I tried had – get this, Life On Cars readers fortunate enough to own an S-Class – electrically-operated curtains. Again, this hugely impressed me, right up until the point I wanted to show off this marvellous invention to the rest of the world and promptly found out I’d be charged a small fortune to access Facebook. Given that WiFi these days is about as important as water, you’d expect to be included in the (already hefty) hotel bill.

My point is that all hotels seem to offer a perfect blend of things you’d want for a night away – but never at the same time. In much the same way that nobody yet offers the perfect family hatchback.

For years, I’ve argued to anyone who’d care to listen that Ford’s Focus offers the best compromise of a decidedly mixed bunch – and a few hours blasting across Britain’s countryside in a 1.6 diesel version confirmed that it’s still one of the best contenders out there. You’ll love it because it’s a hoot to drive when it’s off the motorway, your other half will love it because it’s quiet and refined when it is, and the kids in the back are unlikely to complain about the generous helpings of space.

But – not unlike most of the hotels I’ve been putting my head down in lately – you get the feeling it’d be improved immeasurably if it borrowed a few more ingredients from elsewhere.

The 2.2 litre diesel Honda uses to such wonderful effect, for starters. That it manages to move something as hefty as the CR-V around with such aplomb is a miracle in itself, but mate it with the Civic and you have a powerhouse that manages to be startling quick and eerily quiet while refusing to do less than 45 to the gallon. Imagine how much better all family hatches would be if they had one under the bonnet?

The Italians should be put in charge of styling, if the Alfa Giulietta is anything to go by, while Volkswagen’s best engineers must be kidnapped from Wolfsburg and set to work on the interior for the perfect family hatchback. Nissan would take the lead on marketing, judging by the sales phenomenon it has created with the Qashqai, and the French would be in charge of all those tempting cashback deals.

Blending the Focus’ talents as an all-rounder with the shiniest gems from the opposition would create one heck of a family hatchback. Which you’d all ignore, because you’d still want a 1-Series instead.

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How Citroen came up with the C4 Cactus

THE Parisian schoolboy put down his Crayola and hit the pause button on his Magic Roundabout DVD.

“Daddy”, he shouted excitedly in French which I’ve had to translate into Layman’s English. “I’ve managed to sort out that new hatchback you’ve been struggling with.”

The young designer’s dad, the boss of one of the biggest car companies in the whole of France, was astounded.

“That’s impossible”, he explained with an anguished tone of surprise in his voice. “My team have been working for months on this car, because it’s absolutely crucial that we come up with a rival for the Nissan Juke. You’re only seven years old. How have you managed to design it in twenty minutes?

"More to the point, what exactly are those things on the side supposed to be?”

The French firm’s brilliant new design guru paused reflectively and considered putting The Magic Roundabout back on again, but then he remembered how important this bit of extra homework was. This wasn’t just any old car doodle. This had to take on not just the Nissan Juke, but all the other jacked-up, supermini-sized hatchbacks that had already been launched to take it on.

“This is a lot more sensible than all the other cars I design when I’m at school – it’s only got four wheels, and there aren’t any machine guns or rockets on it. It’s just a normal car, like the one you and Mummy take me to school in.”

The boy’s father repeated the question. “But what is that thing on the side of it?”

“Oh sorry, dad, I forgot about that,” the youngster said. “I dropped a Dairy Milk on the paper and it melted, and now it’s stuck there.”

Dad was impressed. “Brilliant! I love it. It’s so avantgarde – no one but Citroen would think to launch a hatchback with a giant chocolate stuck to the side of it. Love the wheels too. I’ll get it signed off for production tomorrow.

“The only problem”, he explained to his pre-pubescent protégé, “is I’ve no idea what to call it. People love the Juke because it not only looks like it’s got landed from another planet, but it’s got a mad name too. So has the Vauxhall Mokka, and so has the Renault Captur”.

Citroen’s new chief designer smiled and instantly turned to his dad with a suggestion for this new, taller version of the company’s C4 hatchback, which goes on sale across the UK later this year.

“Let’s call it the Cactus, daddy”.

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SEAT needs to find its signature dish

WHEN Withnail and I paid a visit to Penrith they demanded the finest wines known to humanity. When my companion and I ended up there, on a soaked excuse for an evening last week, we ended up staring at the menu outside a Spanish restaurant.

I mention this because – even with every other restaurant in town shut for the night – we still preferred to pop to the nearest chip shop instead because we just didn’t fancy Spanish cuisine. There’s nothing wrong with Spanish cuisine, of course – we just decided we’d rather dine on something slightly more familiar.

It’s exactly the same, I reckon with Spanish cars – by which, of course, I mean SEAT. So far this year, I’ve tried both the new Leon and the hatchback it replaced, and both ticked all the buttons in a nourishing, one-of-your-five-a-day sort of way. Both were effortless when they were on the motorway, entertaining when they weren’t and built with the sort of attention to detail that’d give a chess champion a headache.

Great cars, then, but I can’t think of a single reason why you’d buy one.

SEATs are supposed to be the sportier Spanish cousins of VWs but they aren’t – they are, especially if you look at the Mii and the Alhambra, VW models with a slight nip ‘n’ tuck and a different badge. If I want a VW with a sense of mischief, I’ll get a Golf GTI.

"But SEATs are usefully cheaper than VWs, aren’t they?" I hear you cry. Again, SEAT’s usurped on this one by Skoda, who not only make their cars cheaper than VW’s but more interesting and engaging too. The Yeti, in particular, fills a niche nobody else at Europe’s biggest car maker does by being the perfect car for anyone who owns a Labrador, while the Superb caters perfectly for anyone looking for a car with an overly confident name. They might as well have called it the Skoda Awesome or even the Skoda Screw You, It’s Better Than Your Car, Mate.

SEAT, on the other hand, produces a range of cars that are just as good as anything VW, Skoda and Audi can come up with but there’s no signature dish to woo you with its exotic aromas. There’s no impossibly powerful Leon Cupra R any more, or a small sports car to fill the gap the Fiat Barchetta and the MGF left. Reheating what was admittedly a great dish – the old Audi A4 – in the microwave is not going to get my tastebuds going.

For now, my vote’s still with fish and chips. The Ford Focus, in other words.

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Fire up the... Ford Focus 1.0 EcoBoost

JOURNALISTS have feet made of lead and a need to get absolutely everywhere as quickly as possible.

That's one of the curious conclusions I've drawn from driving the new EcoBoost version of Ford's Focus, which mates a clever, award-winning new engine with the A* student of the family hatchback class. Make no mistake; it's an intruiging take on one of Britain's selling cars, especially given that nearly a fifth of Focuses being sold are EcoBoosts.

The key ingredient is the engine, which you can also find slotted into the Fiesta, Kuga, B-Max, and, in the fullness of time, the Mondeo too. The top pub fact about this extraordinary new powerplant is that it's physically small enough to fit on a sheet of A4 paper, but thanks to direct injection and a turbo this 1.0 litre, three-cylinder motor more than punches above its weight, being not only the winner of a string of car industry awards but also being potent enough to work in the real world. Smooth, nicely revvy and equipped with 125bhp and 170nm of torque, underpowered this Focus ain't.

The Ecoboost engine works well in the Focus too, with the light weight and characterful performance complimenting the car's reputation for being the family hatch with a sense of fun - keener drivers are going to love its fluid handling in particular. It's keenly priced too, with the Zetec S version I drove weighing at a shade over £19,000, putting on a par with a similarly powerful 1.6 engine but cheaper to run and kinder to the environment.

Or is it? Ford reckons the Focus EcoBoost should be able to get you more than fifty miles for your gallon of unleaded but a quick peek at the trip computer on the particular car I drove showed the journos who'd been driving it around before me had got a shade over 36mpg, and a few minutes in Google's company revealed stories from other reviewers - and owners - who struggled to get anything like the official consumption figures.

I think the Focus EcoBoost is a great package which mates an already accomplished car to an award-winningly good engine, but on the crucial issue of fuel economy I can only conclude either a) it's not quite as frugal as you'd think or b) us car reviewers really are too hamfisted and heavy-footed for our own good.

Until Ford let me borrow one long enough to really how much fuel it sips the jury's out on an otherwise thoroughly good contender for your cash.

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It's Sportage versus Focus in the Champion family car battle

AFTER several months of of fruitless debates I'm finally able to put a longstanding argument at the Champion offices to bed. Focus or Sportage - which is better?

It all started earlier this year when one of the office petrolheads asked what's the best new car money can buy, provided you're a family man with roughly £18,000 to throw at your pride and joy. Easy, I reckoned. If you want a family car that's fun, comfy, roomy, good value and is either very good or brilliant at just about everything, then really Ford's Focus is the best bet. The end.

But I was met with a slightly exasperated look. How, the man from the Champion production department suggested, could I seriously reccommend the Focus over Kia's Sportage? Had I gone mad?

So it went on, but to be honest there was one very good reason why I couldn't suggest the Sportage - until this time last week, I hadn't driven one. That was until last week, when at a media test driving day in Yorkshire I finally got a go behind the elusive Korean contender and, for good measure, the clever new 1.0 litre Ecoboost version of the Focus too.

To be fair, the Focus and the Sportage are both very different beasts - one's a good ol' fashioned five-door hatch, while the other's a sort of pseudo-off roader - but if it's a straight cut question of which you'd splash your eighteen grand on, it's a much closer call than you'd think. The Sportage is never going to thrill you a windy road the way a Focus will, but it handles that side of things surprisingly well before pulling out its trump card - the sort of headroom, legroom, and boot space Focus Man would kill for, and it looks good too, in a slightly over-chromed, chintzy sort of way. It's a good car. Annoyingly, verge-of-argument-losingly good, in fact.

Not that I'm going to concede defeat that easily of course. The Focus scores highly on the sort of the things I look for in a car - ride, handling, comfort, gadgets and so on - but if you put style, value for money and a cavernous interior at the top of your shopping list, then the Sportage is the easy winner. Call it an honourable draw.

Obviously it's your call, but I know what I'd go for if I had £18,000 to throw on a family motor. The Skoda Yeti, come to think of it.

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Fire up the... Vauxhall Astra GTC

YOU know you're living in more stylish times when you can freely use “Vauxhall Astra” and “good looking” in the same sentence, but it's true. This new Vauxhall Astra is genuinely good looking.

There are, even if this aesthetically enlightened age plenty of cars you could call striking or challenging but the Astra GTC achieves something much more remarkable, it is one of those coupes that rings all the right visual eyes with almost everyone who takes it in.

Then again, twenty years ago the company's Calibra dissapointed drivers when it was launched, because under its equally striking skin were unexcitingly ordinary Cavalier mechanicals. In order to impress against the likes of Volkswagen's Scirocco and Hyundai's Veloster - which also offer sleek coupe lines with a hint of hatchback practicality - it'll have to offer substance to back its style up.

Like the Veedub and the Hyundai, the GTC's really more of a three-door hatchback with added glitz than a truly no compromises coupe, and while that means you might lose a little in glamour what you gain is big practicality, with genuinely useful headroom and legroom inside, even in the back, where most of its rivals lose out.

The 1.7 diesel version I tried offers plenty of punch too - it's a shame about the slightly tractoresque soundtrack you get when you start it up, but the tradeoff is a claimed 62 to the gallon and lots of low down torque to play with. Even more impressively, it's well equipped, coming with no less than six airbags and a stash of gadgets as standard.

Is it worth spending your £21,200 on? If you're looking for something with a lot of pose factor probably not - it's attractive but not attention-grabbingly so and interior's little staid for all its solidity, but if you're looking for a great looking car which appeals to your head and heart in equal measure it's well worth a look.

I'd still go for a Scirocco first but if the VW's not your bag, you'll love it.

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