Seat’s first 4×4 – Spanish style, German build

If I was a car maker, I wouldn’t mind being Seat.

For a start they’re Spanish, so they can give their cars names like Ibiza and Toledo without sounding cheesy. Then there’s the reassuring feeling of being owned by those sensible chaps at VW, plus the fact that UK sales are accelerating faster than a chicken fleeing a paella factory.

But the most recent excuse for cracking open the Rioja is that Seat has finally joined the four-wheel-drive club. Its new model – the Altea Freetrack – may sound like a high-end running shoe, but this 4wd midi-people carrier promises to be an interesting blend of Latin flair and Teutonic efficiency.

I’m not sure about the radical looks, though. It’s very sculpted, with a beaky Roman nose, deep sides and a back-end that’s more rounded than a 1950s Hollywood starlet. Not so pretty maybe, but striking and purposeful and unlikely to be confused with anything else on the road.

The interior was a bit surprising too. You sit in very tall seats with a big, almost-square screen in front of you. The side windows are set high which, combined with the small glass area behind the rear seats, gives a not-unpleasant feeling of driving an ornate Victorian cast-iron bath.

A very well-made bath, I have to admit, with no groans or creaks and the materials impeccably chosen and rendered. And, like any good Victorian bathroom, you look up to a high ceiling, though this one is unusual in having a series of smallish roof-mounted lockers for storing wallets, phones and maps. Maybe even a bottle of Wash ‘n’ Go and a bar of Imperial Leather.

And here’s a surprise. Press a button and a 7in DVD screen pops down from the roof.

Cue gasps of delight in the back seat as normally grumpy teenagers plug in their portable DVD players and go quieter than a Labour politician asked about party donations.

On the road

With 170hp from a 2-litre diesel lurking under that steeply sloping bonnet, you’d expect some sparkly fireworks when you floor the accelerator. And you get them, too in fact this Freetrack has a distinctly go-kart feel to it. Must be something to do with the short-travel dodgem-style throttle, which encourages you to bang it to the floor and then sit back and enjoy the acceleration.

Mothers-in-law, aunties and other nervous passengers, however, will probably prefer the tranquil motorway cruising, courtesy of a six-speed gearbox and relaxed top gear.

Handling and roadholding? This being a Spanish car, I thought it might ape the French style of road-holding, with a relatively soft suspension and more roll at corners.

In fact it’s as German as sauerkraut, with very precise, very predictable handling and – really impressively – none of that drunken-sailor side-to-side lurching that’s typical of many 4x4s.

The less-good news is that the suspension is a bit too keen to tell you about the precise nature of the surface you’re rolling over. Run over a snail and you’ll feel it go bump-bump under the wheels drop into a fine old British pothole and your teeth will clatter like a waiter dropping a pile of plates.

We didn’t get a chance to off-road the Freetrack, but the on-demand 4wd system and 40mm of extra ground clearance mean it should get up and down shallow farm tracks without trouble. Gymkhana car park? Piece of cake…