Road Test: Skoda Roomster 1.9 TDI PD 3 5dr

This is a brave new world for Skoda. You won't find a Roomster analogue in any of the VW Group's other ranges. The Roomster isn't just some bones-up clone with a newly contorted skin parading as a new car. 

It's a hard car to pigeon-hole without caveats because nobody seems to know what they want from it - not even the designers. Skoda stresses that the Roomster is bipolar - the front is supposed to be a 'driving room', with that purposely non-matching rear windowline enveloping a 'living room' for rear passengers. 

Hence the bonkers glazing to help demarcate the two spaces. Sounds very design studio doesn't it? Well, that would be fine if Skoda had stuck to the brilliant concept vehicle a little more closely, but in the long road from then (2003) to production the Roomster has lost some of its mojo and become too middle-of-the-road to justify the advertising push of a really radical bit of thinking. 

The wraparound windscreen got lost fairly early in the process (the 'screen delineating the driving capsule) and the blacked-out A-pillar isn't really a replacement. The sliding rear doors have disappeared and the squatter stance and more voluptuous arches of the concept have emigrated upwards as the car got taller. 

Nearly every delicious little detail from the concept has morphed away from the radical, leeching character as it did so. About the only thing that has remained is the non-matching windowline. 

Manufacturing practicalities obviously hold sway here, but having whipped up the interest with one thing, there's a danger that the Roomster leaves people wondering when the innovation took a tea break.

Manufacturing realities also mean the Roomster isn't quite a stand-alone bit of kit - its modular platform strategy means taking bits of other Skodas and massaging them together into a new car. 

To keep things cheap, you'll find elements of both new and old Octavias under the back, Fabia up the front, some new bits in the middle, then a fresh shape plonked on top. Frankenstein with wheels. 

Which is undoubtedly a good thing - the new bit, not the Frankenstein. But if it doesn't quite know what it is, there's also bound to be a bit of querulous raising of eyebrows over who the Roomster is actually aimed at too. 

Skoda says in the press material that it competes against all the more traditional mini-MPVs like the Toyota Verso and Renault Scenic, but is also capable of nicking customers from things like Ford's C-Max and even traditional hatches. A bit of a niche straddler, then? Well, sort of. 

A good thing, then, that at least it delivers on the practicality promise. It starts at just £9,920 for a 70bhp 1.2-litre car with a level '1' specification. Meanwhile, the most expensive version with level '3' kit and the 1.9-litre, 105bhp diesel scrapes past £14k by just 50 quid. 

The boot is big, a couple of handy little straps and dividers helping keep strange loads where you put them, with the rear seats lifting out one by one (they call it Varioflex) should you need to stow something larger or more awkward. More combinations than you can shake a pushchair at, if you've removed the sprog first.

With the family in mind, the rear doors open right out to nearly 90 degrees - not something you usually notice, but it means plenty if you're strapping either toddler or babyseat into the back - which many Roomster owners undoubtedly will be. 

Inside, there's lots of space and a seriously airy cabin if you spec the panoramic glass roof, but even though those rear seats slide about in various directions and sit higher than the fronts in a theatre style (like Land Rover's Disco), it lacks the character that we were hoping for.

You can get a bike in it if you play hide-the-seat-in-the-garage, but that doesn't make it a funky lifestyle choice. 

You can predict the rest. The plastics are obviously built for toughness rather than touch, even if you order a bit of leather. The interior appointments are all tediously familiar (it's a cost thing) and there's nothing in here that brings the stark style that Skoda could have been reaching for. It's not a bad car - just a staid one. 

The same goes for the rest of the package. Engines are reliably slow, ranging from that 1.2-litre four to the 1.9-litre PD diesel with 105bhp we have here. 

None of them fast enough to make you feel particularly comfortable, the fastest 1.6-litre petrol (again 105bhp) and the similarly endowed diesel only going some way to mitigate the fact that you feel like you get in everyone's way. 

The handling is, as you might have predicted, adequate and uninspiring, though exactly what you expect from a car with this kind of silhouette. 

There are also other little niggles to consider; it's a tremendously colour-sensitive motor, the greens and silvers looking tidy, while other shades tend to draw your eyes in uncomfortable directions. Parked up, in red, the Roomster can look as if the chassis is banana'd; the nose ramping upwards while the rear cubicle stays flat.

Same thing goes for the wheels - the Roomster really could do with some bigger rims to bulk out the stance - I know that's not really on the agenda for a car like this, but it would be remedial work on a car that looked great just before it got to production. 

The real shame is that if Skoda had been a little braver, a little bit more extreme, then this could have been a genuine mould-breaker. I can still see it with big fat plastic arches and chunky tyres, ride-height raised and VW's 4x4-lite underneath, some slightly Eighties 'Roomster' graphics slapped down the side.

It would be a most excellent swollen version of the Fiat Panda 4x4, and perhaps more like the car I was expecting. As it is, the Roomster is a worthy addition, just one that doesn't do anything other than offer slightly more choice in a crowded part of the market. More space, less cash, but it could have been so much more.