So far, we’ve established that the Nissan Pulsar’s strengths lie in comfort, practicality and user-friendliness.

Last month I put these traits to good use, by helping my partner to move house: The Pulsar’s wide tailgate, low loading sill and shallow rear bumper made the boot easy to load up with bulky, heavy boxes and bags.

This was a contrast to last year when I used my own saloon car to do the same task, and pulled a muscle in my neck, after fighting with a high load lip and a needlessly large bumper.

The Pulsar's boot itself, while large, is not class-leading. At 385 litres, it’s 22 litres bigger than a Ford Focus’s boot and five litres bigger than a  Volkswagen Golf’s boot.

It is dwarfed, however, by the Peugeot 308’s 470-litre boot and the Honda Civic’s 477 litres.

Inside, the Pulsar is very well thought out. Its generous legroom meant boxes could be safely tucked in between the front and rear seats, and the generous door pockets were useful for storing trinkets and bric-a-brac.

The glovebox is also usefully deep. One of my pet hates is small gloveboxes which can’t carry the phone charger, duster and road map I always carry in my cars.