It had four-wheel drive, seven seats, a practical cabin, plenty of kit and a big luggage area. But could such an ordinary-looking, plain-driving car merit that ￡34k list price? I want to talk about versatility. Before the Mitsubishi Outlander, my long-term test car was, albeit briefly, a BMW 330d Touring. There are those currently serving aboard the good ship Autocar who have since suggested to me that this BMW was (and is) one of the best all-round real-worlders currently on sale. With straight six-cylinder silk in the front, a seats-down 1500-litre cavern in the back and one of the sweetest rear-wheel drive chassis ever to have buccaneered its way out of Munich, the 330d is a marvel, no doubt. But no one ever moved house in it. No one ever wanted to shift tools in it. Or rubbish. Or take it across a muddy field. And almost as soon as I filled its capacious backside with camera gear, some toe-rag cracked the rear window like a pinata and helped himself.
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