MENTION 4x4 motoring and the tendency is to think of an oversized gas guzzler that's anything but friendly to the atmosphere it lives in.

But with Toyota's chunky Urban Cruiser nothing could be further from the truth.

During the week I had the car it averaged just over 57 miles per gallon and put out less CO2 than your average family hatchback.

In fact it has the lowest CO2 emissions of any four-wheel-drive car using a conventional engine.

As its name suggests it's designed more for the streets than tackling deep mud and mountains but it does have a rugged feel to it, yet is light and easy to drive.

The secret of its frugal fuel consumption and clean living is its 1.4-litre diesel engine which is mated to a slick, six-speed manual gearbox.

Now some diesel engines of this size struggle to pull the skin off a rice pudding but not so in the case of the Urban Cruiser. In fact when you get behind the wheel it's hard to believe the engine is as small as it is - it feels more like a 1.8-litre.

It's certainly more than adequate for the job, offering good acceleration, plenty of torque and an instant response whenever you need it. In fact it offers the ideal balance of fuel economy and low emissions combined with really gutsy pulling power and the feeling you are driving something with a much larger power plant beneath the bonnet.

The bonus is that you have four-wheel-drive whenever you need it.

Under normal conditions the car operates like a conventional front-wheel-drive vehicle - thus saving fuel.

But if, for example, there is snow on the roads and it senses the front wheels slipping, it puts power to the rear wheels to give you all-wheel-drive to get you out of trouble.

If conditions become very bad you can flick a switch near the gear lever to lock the wheels so 50 per cent of the power permanently goes to both the front and rear wheels.

It isn't a vehicle that pretends to have the capability of something like a Range Rover, but then most people don't need that sort of specialist vehicle.

And the nice thing about the Urban Cruiser is that it dispels the myth that to have a vehicle capable of tackling tough conditions you have to buy something that looks like an off-roader. True it has a macho appearance but with its urban friendly dimensions it is still much more in the mould of a family hatchback than a Jeep.