How times have moved on… So absolutely had the company hung its hat on the environmentally-conscientious peg of hybrid drive technology that, until the arrival of the recently retired GT86, the fastest accelerating production Toyota was… Ta…daaah; the Land Cruiser V8. The GT86 changed all that. But only just… Because, drawing on a long heritage …

Nissan’s X-Trail has always suffered something of an identity crisis. It arrived in the UK in 2001 as a tall, gently rufty-tufty estate car with extra ground clearance, all-wheel drive and hoary-handed-son-of-the-soil aspirations. Trouble is, Subaru’s spunky, 60mph-over-stubble-fields-with-a-smile-on-your-fizzog Forester 2.0 litre Turbo had already had its towel on that sun-lounger since 1998, proved a big …