FIRST, a question. Please answer honestly; how bothered are you about what your car 'says about you?'

If the answer is that you like to drive something you rather like the look of - and preferably with a posh badge on the front - then you may not need to read on any further.

For the revised Peugeot you see here is no looker, and really was not meant to be.

Even with a mild go at giving this most recent version a bit of visual vim with a restyled front end, it really inhabits a more serious part of the car new car market.

One where running costs and carrying capacity (both people and luggage) are far more important than winning admiring glances from the neighbours as you pull up in your new purchase. There is a solid core of sensible motorists for whom this Partner Tepee was designed.

This happy breed admires the way you can chuck the luggage in the vast boot and stow the kids safely in the rear seats and not worry everything won't fit (a moderate three stars in the European safety test a mild disappointment apart), because you will have space to spare.

Choose wisely and this functional family hold-all need not hit your finances too hard. Prices of the revised range start at £14,785 for a car with a 1.6-litre petrol engine.

You might fancy a more economical diesel from £15,585, although you could go the whole hog and take the most expensive of them all, and tested here, in the well equipped, most powerfully diesel engined £19,245 Tepee in Allure trim.

That brings things like alloy wheels, reversing camera, front and rear parking peepers, touchscreen to control the DAB radio, roof bars and fog lights that come on during slow cornering.

You might, correctly, regard some of those goodies as surplus to requirements in a car that began life as a van and should not rise above its station.

You might indeed think that heading a bit down the price list makes more sense, settling on a less powerful version of the same 1.6-litre diesel in Active trim level, shorn of some of the non-vital bits and costing a more palatable £15,585.

You will lose performance, of course, which might bother an owner with loads of people to move in a mountainous region of the world. But it won't use much fuel and still comes with the essentials as standard - air conditioning, remote central locking and electric front windows, even cruise control.

And, a stand out extra available only on this lesser of the two trim lines, is a third row seat and side airbags, costing £845 and available (only) on the 100 horsepower diesel model, which costs £16,335. How practical is that!

Need to tackle the odd rutted track or lightly mown meadow? Then you will be needing the all terrain pack, and an option on the top trim model. It comes with clever electronics that make sure the driven wheel with the most grip does most work in very slippery conditions, perhaps taking your Tepee where lesser versions could not venture.