I dread anyone asking me to recommend a compact 4x4 to them. There are, after all, these days, so many from which to choose. I guess it depends upon what you want to pay. If you simply want the best, then you need to consider the car that's been sitting on my driveway this week, Volkswagen's Tiguan.

I was surprised that it took Volkswagen so long to get around to doing a Land Rover Freelander/Toyota RAV4 competitor. Now it's arrived, it's largely as you would expect a Volkswagen off-roader to look, the marque not known for its radical styling departures. The glasshouse is a good deal narrower than the lower section of the car which fills out at the shoulder line to chunky effect. There might even be a hint of Porsche Cayenne about the rear view. Inside, the design is lifted directly from the Golf and Golf Plus models so you know it's going to have that Volkswagen air of quality. We know that the Tiguan is based on the Golf but Volkswagen have done a typically thorough job of converting their family hatch favourite into a 4x4. The Golf uses an all-aluminium sub frame but this was deemed not sufficiently strong to handle the buffeting that committed owners might subject their Tiguan too. As a result, the vehicle uses a modular sub-frame that's aluminium at the front and steel at the rear. The Tiguan is also the first vehicle to receive Volkswagen's electric steering system which has been designed to eliminate kickback and enhance accuracy.

Since every engine in the Tiguan line-up is turbocharged or supercharged and turbocharged, pulling power shouldn't be in short supply. The units are a familiar bunch with the 140PS 2.0 TDI diesel that I tried likely to be the best seller. Alternatively, there's the groundbreaking turbocharged and supercharged petrol engine that manages to extract 150PS from its 1.4-litre capacity. These are the main two engines available but your dealer will also happily take orders for a range of other powerplants also developed for this car. These include a 170PD 2.0 TDI unit, plus two other 2.0 TSI petrol units, developing either 170 or 200PS. There isn't a bad engine amongst them but the TSI units in particular really are ahead of their time. I didn't try my car on the rough stuff, mindful of the fact that whether the Tiguan is any good off-road will be an irrelevance to most UK buyers - akin to the question of whether they could row their supermini across the channel. Despite our growing affection for 4x4 vehicles, we don't take them off-road very much and people that do make regular forays into the undergrowth make damn sure they do so in a Land Rover Defender or something similarly rugged. That said, off-road ability has become a little bit of a badge of honour for compact 4x4s. Buyers don't need it but they'd like the model they choose to have it all the same. The 4x4 Tiguan uses the basic Haldex all-wheel-drive system from the Golf 4MOTION models but with a wider track and ground clearance increased to 189mm. More importantly, it has a nice line in electronic trickery to help it out of sticky situations.

I'd say so. There was a feeling of quality to this compact 4x4 missing from some of the others I've tried recently - but then, you'd expect nothing less than that from Volkswagen. Basically, here we have a compact 4x4 with at least some genuine off-road ability for those that want it plus Golf-inspired build quality and driving dynamics for people like me who don't. Add to that a highly advanced engine range along with Volkswagen badging that's certain to go down a storm in this image-conscious sector and the Tiguan's package seems to make market sense.