ARE you the ideal person to own a Subaru Forester? Answer three simple questions to find out.

Question one: Do you need a car that will go almost anywhere? If the answer is 'no', skip the rest and buy a nice sensible hatchback instead.

Question two: Do you like to drive 'briskly' when the occasion suits. If the answer is 'no', stick around because you might be interested in a different version of the test car.

Question three: Do you have sufficient funds not to be concerned about a car that likes to drink rather a lot of petrol? If you answer 'no' to this, please refer to question two, above.

Answer 'yes' to all three questions and you might be a step nearer to enjoying a car that wags a finger at conventional thinking, even while wrapped up in a box that won't attract a second glance.

Subaru has always built cars that favoured original thinking under the skin to a shape that flattered to deceive when you put the key in the ignition and drove away.

That certainly applies to the test car; it may have received some useful upgrades inside but here is a car you know was designed to do a job, and do it without complaint for a long time.

That applies to every version of the Forester, which starts at £24,995 for a 2.0 litre diesel and tops out at £30,995 with the car you see here, fitted with a 237bhp petrol engine producing the sort of performance you simply don't expect from a chunky SUV.

It doesn't matter which version of the Forester you choose, all of them have the Subaru trademarks of all-wheel drive and petrol or diesel engines set out as flat fours.

That may not mean much to the non-mechanical reader, but their design keeps the weight nearer the ground. And that's a good thing. It helped them win lots of rallies in the not too distant past.

If the rallies took in lots of rough off-road sections the test car would have put up a fight. Built high off the road, it laughs at obstacles which make lesser machines turn white with fear.

New on Foresters with automatic transmission, like this car, is hill descent control which, at the press of a button, regulates your speed down the sort of slippery slope you couldn't stand up on while you concentrate on the steering.

Also included is automatic transmission, leather trim, a vast glass sunroof, dual zone air conditioning, a (slow) powered tailgate and a satellite navigation system that is more complicated than it needs to be, but worked well in the end.

It's quite a big car (4,595mm long, 1,795mm wide) and there's a lot of space inside, with a generous boot and plenty of room in the rear seat.

Back on a proper road, the Forester XT simply flies when given a prod of an accelerator pedal that's too eager to start proceedings and makes smooth take offs harder than necessary.

Once underway, you're in a position to make hot hatches wonder what just happened at the lights. It really does feel unfeasibly fast, backing up a claimed top speed of 137mph and a 0-62mph sprint in 7.5 seconds.

Now, the rules of nature say that using that urge will have consequences at the filling station. Subaru's average consumption figure of 33.2mpg is achieved by following a set of Euro rules and is going to be optimistic in most (every?) case.

And a C02 figure of 197g/km won't do an owner's pockets any favours either, with a stinging £490 in road tax in year one, reducing to a still painful £265 thereafter.