The car with the unpronounceable name, as this Qashqai was once dubbed, is actually pretty easy to pronounce once you’ve got past the weird spelling. It’s very close to saying "Cash-Cow", which is promptly what is became known as in our offices.

But what exactly is the Qashqai, then? Well, it’s apparently a nomadic tribe of... oh wait, I bet you mean the car itself, don’t you? Well that’s a bit less straightforward. It is, in effect, a 'cross-over', which in effect means it falls somewhere between a modern SUV and a regular saloon. Which is to say that it offers a high, 200mm ride-height, but lacks any manner of off-road hardware to ever need it.

That's strange, we think. But hey perhaps that's why it's so ruthlessly targeted at the "urban adventurer". Not that we've ever seen an inner-city kerb requiring 200mm ground clearance but nevertheless.

We've driven both engine derivatives available, both are four-cylinder petrol motors, the smaller unit measures 1.6-litres, the larger a more fulsome 2.0-litres, and for my money, both are pretty poor. There's nothing wrong with the noise they make, both have pleasingly growly, throaty snarls when extended to the redline, but both are limp-wristed in the extreme, so saddling them with 1800-odd-kg of focus-confused vehicle to lug doesn't help matters much. As reflected by their test figures, and the 2.0-litre Mazda5 which happened to be around our offices at the same time. The Mazda's motor feels fit and feisty, despite lugging a genuinely practical mommy-wagon along, while the Nissan’s just feels gutless, and the 1.6 need not even be mentioned.

All right, so then perhaps it's the spacious, stylish interior that will win our hearts? Well, no. It's all right, but is decidedly spartan, including just an audio system and dual-zone automatic climate control in the centre console. Oh, and a row of warning lights highlighting exactly which rear-seat passenger isn't wearing his or her seatbelt. Satellite controls for the stereo and your cellphone, connected via integrated Bluetooth connectivity, appear on the wheel.

But the cloth seats aren’t the most comfortable, and feature such flat bottoms that anything you happen to drop onto them will hit the front passenger footwell each and every time you apply the brakes. And the plastics aren’t great either, although they've been up-rated with a rubbery feel rather than the conventional hard, scratchy plastics.

Aesthetically, all right so here it is a winner. Qashqai successfully treads a middle ground, in terms of sheer bulk, between car and SUV, and features styling which for the most part, except perhaps the rear aspect, is modern and strong. It backs this look up with a ride which is very comfort-oriented, and you waft along serenely even over Jo'burgs worst potholed roads.

Get a touch of spirit in your driving, however, and the Qashqai falls apart completely. Its nose just ploughs on, long before the point of commitment you think it should still be able to cope with. In fact, it's very disconcerting, taking a corner at what feels like easily reasonable speed, and the front-end starts showing signs of understeer already! Which makes carrying the small amount of speed the limp engines generate a tad tricky, as you're always concerned that the car will lose its front end and leave you embarrassingly pranged up against a kerb. The smaller engine model is better than the 2.0-litre in this regard, which may have something to do with ESP as well as disabling these safety electronics on the larger car alleviates the problem somewhat.

Which is rather a shame for us. Whether it will put the punters in the market for a crossover vehicle off, is another question, although we think it's unlikely.