Mazda CX-3

Price/as tested £20,495/£21,035 Model Sport Nav 2WD Driver Dan Read Why it’s here Has Mazda made the world’s best little crossover?

Despite having no kids and a garage begging for something fast and silly, I have somehow amassed a small collection of sensible, family vehicles. One is the CX-3. The other is my Skoda Yeti. Both are fridge-freezer white with modest petrol engines. Both cost about £20k in the specs you see here. Put together, they make as much horsepower as one Golf GTI. I know. Living the Top Gear dream, eh?

Let me explain. I share the Yeti with my wife, who being from Canada likes SUVs and can’t operate a gearstick. Fine, but we also needed something cheap to buy and run. So what’s SUV-ish with a decent auto and a small engine? I’ll tell you: it’s a Skoda Yeti and not much else. For my money it’s the most successful crossover of the lot, especially with a 1.2-litre turbo paired with a double-clutch ’box.

You sit as high as Range Rover drivers, who – as hard as they try – literally can’t look down on you. It has big-car styling and room for all the children I don’t have. Yet it’s cheap to run and easy to park and replacement parts cost about 34p each, though after 12,000 miles nothing has needed replacing.

Why am I banging on about this? Because the Yeti, along with the Nissan Qashqai, pretty much defned the whole segment-smudging crossover thing, which has since become the fastest-growing area of the UK car market.

But I have a theory. Crossovers only really work in the space between Golf-size hatchbacks and proper SUVs, where there’s a big enough gap to bridge. That’s why the Yeti works so well, with its cuboid shape. But between a supermini such as the Mazda2 and the next-size-up Mazda3? That’s not a gap but a small fissure, and it doesn’t take much crossing.

So all the CX-3 can really do is copy the looks of a bigger car and ride a bit higher. It’s a decent little thing. A clever optical illusion. But a true crossover? I don’t think so.