Kuga’s technology and comfort

Titanium X trim with automatic gearbox and four-wheel drive weighed in at £33,445 – and that’s before a couple of thousand pounds of options were added.

It wanted for nothing though – full leather seats, panoramic glass roof, power tailgate, xenon headlights, electric heated seats and all manner of other gadgetry abound.

For those who need their Kuga with even greater luxury there’s a Vignale version – Vignale being Ford’s luxury arm.

The Kuga’s now a much more well rounded car than the original. Adults can fit in the back, dogs can go in the boot and there are more and cleverer cubby holes and stowage areas.

Ride and refinement are much better too. I took my Kuga up to Pitlochry and it’s proved to be a comfortable cruiser along the A9.

What’s lost, unfortunately, is some of the pin-sharp handling that made the original such fun. It’s still handles quite well but it’s rare for a Ford not to be the best driver’s car in its category and Mazda’s dynamic CX-5 certainly offers greater involvement.

Not everyone cares about chucking an SUV around a bend, though, and a drive down a few of Dundee’s residential streets shows the Kuga’s a popular enough car – plenty of driveways have one parked on them.

The Kuga is up against some tremendously talented opposition, including the aforementioned CX-5, Nissan’s Qashqai and Hyundai’s Tucson.

The latest round of updates keep it in the game.