Kia Sportage safety is very good with plenty of safety kit on offer including Electronic Stability Control (ESC) that automatically brakes one or more wheels, reduces engine torque – or does both – to stabilise the car if the car has gone out control. There’s also a roll-over sensor that detects when the car might be in danger of rolling over and deploys the side and curtain airbags and seat-belt pre-tensioners so that occupants are fully protected should the worst happen.

There’s also whiplash-countering headrests, front, side and curtain airbags and ISOFIX child-seat mounting in the rear seats. Security-wise, it’s a similar story: the Sportage offers an immobiliser and alarm, door deadlocks, child safety rear door locks, speed-sensing auto-door locking and impact-sensing auto-door unlocking. The 18-inch alloys also come with locking wheel nuts.

All this safety kit has clearly helped as the Sportage was given the maximum five stars in the Euro NCAP tests.

Kia Sportage practicality is impressive. There’s loads of head- and legroom and the boot is wonderfully cavernous. You can fold the seats down with a satisfying click of a button and if Kia had managed to get the rears to fold down to create a completely flat load bay, we would say this car is top of the tree for practicality. Total loading area is 1,353 litres, which is smaller than that offered in the Hyundai ix35, but larger than that in the Suzuki Grand Vitara and the Honda CR-V.

There’s some nice touches that suggest Kia has been thinking about its target market: special bottle holders in the door panels are big enough to hold a bottle of wine, which is fantastic when you don’t want them rolling about after a trip from the supermarket. There’s also plenty of cubbies and a decent sized storage unit in the central console.