IMAGINE driving your car around a busy market square with all the front windows blanked out.

Then try to work out how to reverse into a parking bay without hitting anything.

Impossible? Not if the car is the latest Nissan Qashqai which is now being fitted with a clever video system to give drivers an unrestricted view around the vehicle.

It is a first for medium-sized cars and is designed to prevent costly scrapes to alloy wheels, bumpers and the like when manoeuvring in tight spaces.

The technology is being rolled out on the Qashqai alongside a new diesel engine which makes the car significantly more economical and slashes exhaust emissions.

We put both to the test as the British-built model celebrates its fourth anniversary as one of the nation's favourite cars.

Since the first Qashqai rolled of the line at Nissan's factory in Sunderland more than a million have been built and it has become the fourth best selling family hatch in the UK.

The Around View monitor system gives the Qashqai something else to crow about and features four tiny cameras fitted beneath the door mirrors, on the front grille and on the tailgate.

Combining the images with a bit of computerised wizardry on the car's central display screen enables the driver to see exactly what is around the car.

The so-called helicopter view works only at speeds up to six miles per hour and with the windscreen and front windows covered up we set off to negotiate a figure of eight course around obstacles then reverse into a parking bay.

Just by viewing the images on the screen and following coloured trajectory lines which show where the vehicle is heading we managed to complete the exercise with a surprising degree of accuracy - steering a good course and slotting the car backwards between the lines almost perfectly.

The system is also used on Nissan's luxury brand Infiniti models and a similar set up can be found on certain Land Rovers - but in cars costing around £20,000 it is a first.

It will be standard on the higher grade Tekna and ntec+ versions of the Qashqai adding to features such as sat nav, climate control and the posh interiors which have made the car such a hit.

The new 1.6-litre diesel will broaden appeal further improving fuel consumption of some models by almost a third and dropping emissions into lower tax bands.

When fitted with a stop/start system which will be available in the New Year, front-wheel-drive Qashqais will be capable of averaging more than 62 to the gallon with a CO2 rating of 119g/km - the lowest of any in the line up.

Without the stop/start set up the new diesel is not quite as economical with average mpg in the mid-50s.

On the base Visia model the new diesel will be priced from £19,445 or £19,695 for the stop/start eco version - the same as the current but less economical two-litre diesel automatic.

Developing 130ps it the most powerful 1.6-litre diesel currently available. The engine made its debut a couple of months ago in the Scenic compact MPV built by Nissan's sister company Renault.

Out on the road it gives the Qashqai a fair turn of speed and with a 0 to 60 acceleration time of 10.9 seconds it is almost as quick as a two-litre petrol model.

The new diesel is available only with a six-speed manual gearbox and even in the larger seven-seat Qashqai+2 it delivers plenty of pull.

For a diesel it sounds remarkably refined although on the +2 it is not quite as green with a CO2 output of 123g/km.

On four-wheel-drive Qashqais the new engine will be available only in the top two trim levels and emissions are again higher at 135 and 139g/km taking those cars out of the sub-120 CO2 zone where significant tax savings can be made.