On trax for Holden

Finding out what others think of Holden's new and pretty little SUV called Trax can be misguided. Jeremy Clarkson initially thought it would be a 'gutless mums' taxi'. Gutless mum? Try having a baby, Jerry.

It took someone by the name of Jez Spinks (goodness, the name sounds like one of those blokes in the kind of pay-for movies you get in hotel rooms) to sum it up accurately.

"Take a Barina city car, jack up the suspension and pump steroids into the body...and you get the Holden Trax.... the company's smallest SUV yet."

Nice one Jez and he's right but don't be fooled by the term 'small' because Holden have managed a nice little trick of the eye with this SUV. It looks and feels remarkably spacious and far bigger than a Barina thanks to clever design - sloping the windows a bit, redesigning the dash board to include a seven inch touch screen, plumping up the cushions, angling the window switches and so on. A shave here and a flick there.

Yet at the same time the designers have managed to add bits as well - there are more little cubby holes for hiding things like the tax return forms you should have given to the accountant than with many much larger SUV including a lidded compartment on the dash. Why, there are even four cup holders inside, so back seat pax don't have to balance bottles on their knees. A small point maybe, but an important one.

Literally the centre point of the interior is Holden's seven-inch touch screen loaded with the company's MyLink infotainment system. It's the same on as in the Commodore and thankfully - no, make that mercifully -has welldesigned, quick-glance, easy-to-spot graphics. It's this generously portioned screen that houses the reverse camera too.

With MyLink your smart phone can be married up to the system via Bluetooth and, provided you've got the right app, you can listen to integrated internet radio. I didn't but my motoring editor friend from New Plymouth had us listening to Berlin Radio and in case we got lost near the border we could save ourselves with the satellite navigation. It's the kind of virtual package that has you shaking your head in wonder and which, again, many other car manufacturers have yet to adopt.

And so to the road. The 1.8 litre petrol driven engine (available on both the LS and the top-end LTZ and is what's in the Cruze too) pushes the body along very smartly indeed and steers with certainty. There's a competency about Trax performance that you don't expect because she's carrying a bit of body weight compared to some of the opposition and yet she delivers Filling a new market segment. Trax - The latest little cross-over from Holden. amazingly well in both the handling and performance categories. She literally kicks above her weight and aided by as many safety acronyms you can list before running out of breath.

These smaller-size SUVs are known as 'soft-roaders' and are never going to be driven off-road because they're designed primarily as all-purpose and family-friendly modes of transport. It's patronizing to call them a mummy taxi. If you're in the market for, say, a smallish sedan you might want to change tack and think Trax for sheer versatility and because you'd go a long way to find something this good in terms of the levels of specification on offer and how well it delivers.