Building a winning full-sized MPV appears easy. Make it drive like a car but feature enough space and clever versatility to wow people in the showrooms. Then just price it competitively. Answer these simple criteria and you'll take the market by storm. Yet if you look at the people carriers out there, none fit the bill. They all either offer acres of space but drive like buses or handle sportily but cost a fortune to run and don't give too much over a typical estate car. Here's one that would seem to tick all of the boxes- the latest diesel Ford Galaxy.

Not so much a car as a range of different models powered by three distinct engines, the Galaxy diesel range has a lot going for it. Let's take a look at the powerplant options first. The entry-level diesel is the 100bhp Duratorq TDCi 1.8 and there's also a peppier 125bhp version of this unit on offer. Those looking for the sort of torque that makes short work of hauling seven people up a motorway incline will prefer the 140bhp 2.0-litre Duratorq TDCi, an engine that delivers a surge of 340Nm in overboost conditions. With a six-speed manual transmission as standard, this engine offers a decent compromise between power and economy. If you want an automatic, there's also a 130PS variant on offer.

Prices have been kept reasonable too, with the entry-level diesel starting at under £19,500. That'll get you a 100bhp LX model. Move up to a 125bhp version of the same trim level and you'll be looking at £20,295. Independent figures supplied for Carcost by Emmox have shown that the Galaxy Zetec 1.8TDCi 125PS will cost £2,493 less to run over three years/60,000 miles than the Citroën C8 SX HDi 2.2DT 130. And the new Galaxy Ghia 2.0TDCi 140PS will cost £2,533 less over three years/60,000 miles than Renault's Espace Expression 2.2dCi 150. That is a saving of more than £16 a week, every week, for three years. The Carcost comparison also shows that fuel costs and service, maintenance and repair costs are lower over three years/60,000 miles than those of comparable VW Sharan, Renault Espace, Citroen C8 and Toyota Previa models. Additionally, the CAP and Carcost figures both show the new seven-seat Galaxy to offer strong residual values - beating virtually all of the competition and bettering even the current Galaxy by up to seven per cent.

"The Galaxy diesel is a very convincing proposition"

With the diesel line up starting at LX, running through Zetec and topping out at Ghia level, the range-topping model is the 6-speed 2.0-litre TDCi Ghia, priced at £23,995. Bear in mind that this is a well-equipped full-sized MPV and that it's easy to specify a compact MPV up to near these prices. The affordability side of things is well covered. What's the Galaxy like to drive?

In a word, sharp. The suspension and steering are both reassuring and all three engines have enough torque to serve up a fun drive. Even the mid range engine will accelerate to 60mph in 11.4 seconds and run on to a 113mph top speed. At the same time this 1.8-litre 125bhp powerplant will return 45mpg on the combined cycle and emit just 125g/km of carbon dioxide. An interesting option available to Galaxy buyers is an active suspension system. Continuously Controlled Damping (CCD) provides damper valve control every two tenths of a second in order to guarantee the best balance between comfort and road contact. The heave, roll and pitch of the Galaxy are controlled by the system, improving body control and thus comfort. This gives the Galaxy additional agility and sure-footedness, especially when the vehicle is heavily loaded.

Safety is one area in which the Galaxy excels. An ultra-rigid passenger cell is a good start point, but there's also a recently-developed Interactive Vehicle Dynamics Control (IVDC) system that controls all of the other safety systems in a cohesive manner. When those include that Continuously Controlled Damping (CDDC), Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with Forward Alert (FA) and Collision Mitigation By Braking, that's quite some integration task. Factor in the anti-lock braking system, Hill Launch Assist (HLA) and a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System and you have a wide array of available safety functions that Ford predict will easily be enough to net the Galaxy a coveted five-star EuroNCAP safety score.

No MPV worth its salt will be without a seriously clever interior and the Galaxy scores well here too. Ford's designers appear to have become fed up with Vauxhall taking all the plaudits for clever seating solutions and have developed a system of their own. The FFS (Ford FoldFlatSystem before you attribute a baser meaning to that acronym) allows 32 different seating permutations. The second and third rows of seats all fold flat to form a genuinely huge load floor which measures 2.0 by 1.15 metres - that's about as big as a double bed.

Think of this Galaxy as Ford finally getting to take the gloves off. The old Galaxy was developed as far as Ford could push but there was no getting away from the fact that this was a car created on the cheap. Not cheap in terms of global automotive development, but cheap insofar as Ford shared much of the costs with the Volkswagen Group. Ford got the Galaxy while Volkswagen and SEAT got the Sharan and Alhambra models respectively. Of the three clones, the Galaxy was always the biggest seller in this country, helped in no small part by the huge dealer network, the keen pricing incentives and, to this eye at least, the sharpest styling. None of which could disguise the fact that the Galaxy consistently recorded rather sorry scores in customer satisfaction surveys. Quality was tightened up on later models but there persisted the suspicion that, in sales terms at least, the Portuguese-built Galaxy was punching well above its weight.

Fed up with a lack of autonomy where quality and design functions were concerned, Ford vowed to design and build the subsequent Galaxy generation entirely in house. So it is that the latest Galaxy model has been funded by Ford, designed by Ford and is bolted together by Ford at the Genk Assembly Plant in Belgium - a factory that is successfully benchmarking Ford's flagship Saarlouis facility in terms of quality. It feels solid and the materials quality is way higher than its predecessor. The interior is also a good deal more adventurously styled.

In a somewhat odd twist of fate, the biggest impediment to the Galaxy diesel's chances of topping the large MPV sales charts could come from within Ford rather than from any established rivals. The S-MAX model, launched concurrently, is selling strongly and bringing a younger owner profile to larger MPV vehicles. In contrast, the Galaxy diesel is a little more traditional in appeal whilst still sharing the cutting edge technology. Take a look at its constituent parts, however, and it's hard to argue against it.

TOP 5 GALAXY DEALS

The results below show the top GALAXY deals on buyacar

	Ford Galaxy 2.0 TDCi Ghia 5dr People Carrier
	ETR	Mthly £352	Saving £4,654	Price £20,366
	Ford Galaxy 2.0 TDCi Zetec 5dr People Carrier
	ETR	Mthly £325	Saving £4,366	Price £19,154
	Ford Galaxy 1.8 TDCi Zetec 5dr [6] People Carrier
	ETR	Mthly £318	Saving £4,227	Price £18,568
	Ford Galaxy 1.8 TDCi Zetec 5dr People Carrier
	ETR	Mthly £315	Saving £4,194	Price £18,426
	Ford Galaxy 1.8 TDCi Ghia 5dr [6] People Carrier
	ETR	Mthly £344	Saving £4,515	Price £19,780

typical 10.07% APR

PCP finance quote over 48 months,  10,000 miles pa,  deposit of £1000