I have a delusion that I’m somehow immune to plushness, that I can see through fancy stitching and embossed lettering and leather finish, and intuit my way, monastically, to the true value of the thing beneath. It is total manure. I love a panoramic sunroof an unreasonable amount, considering the amount of time, as a responsible driver, I spend gazing through it. I had the Renault Kadjar in its range-topping Signature Nav version. They must have seen me coming.
High off the road and handsome, it is a very French sort of SUV: much more, “Join us – we’re on a safety-first journey to a ski lodge” than the Scando-German, “Check out my girth – in a clash with an elk, I’d definitely win” (let alone the Anglo-Saxon, “By the glint of my bull bars, you can see I’d very easily be adapted to suit a paranoid yet thrifty dictator”).
Indented tail lights adorn a cute rear end and roof rails make you look sporty, even when you know you’re not. Children like it because it is red and it takes a lot of clambering into. It has both cruise control and speed limiting, which is handy if you want to get on a motorway and go immediately to sleep.
That’s not what I wanted: it’s very well designed for a long drive, the posture is right, it has a good weight, neither lumbering nor light, and it moves smoothly through its six gears with a touch of impatience, as though it wants only what’s best for you and your journey time. On an epic six-hour trudge to the West Country and back (same evening), I was impressed: every now and then, stuck in some weird snarl-up, I’d notice that I didn’t look as catastrophically grumpy as everyone else.
Was it because of my hill-start assist, or the fuel economy (London to Wells and back on half a tank)? Maybe the fact that I could feel the road, yet not its imperfections, which bolstered my impression of my own classiness? Perhaps the traffic-detection on the satnav made me more confident than I should have been that I was going the best possible way. (You have no counterfactual, do you, as the idiotic, non-GPS-equipped human? I might have got there much faster with an old-fashioned paper map, but I felt as though I had second sight.)
Trying to be SUV, saloon and estate all in one has clipped its wings a bit: it has a lot of “family” features – a huge boot, more airbags than I have relatives – and won’t appeal to people who like cars sleek. Whatever: I arrived in a whole variety of places in a good mood. That never happens.
Renault Kadjar Signature Nav dCi 130: in numbers
Price £27,470
Top speed 118mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 9.9 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 62.8mpg
CO2 emissions 117g/km
Eco rating 8/10
Cool rating 7/10
