WITH the rip-roaring success of the Qashqai and the Juke, Nissan's new Pulsar compact challenger has slipped under the radar a little.

This is a shame because in a sector dominated by the likes of the Golf, Astra and Focus, the Pulsar is a worthy all rounder.

Starting at £15,995 it has bags of standard kit for the price, it is roomy, practical and offers clean and economical engines.

It may not be drop-dead stunning, but it ticks most of the boxes required when choosing a small family car. That's not to say it doesn't have appeal, it does and a little novelty, with many interested parties checking it out when parked.

The Pulsar offers class leading space in some areas and a choice of diesel and petrol engines.

It has the longest wheelbase in its class and rear passenger legroom is nearly 700mm greater than the average family car, offering excellent space in the boot and wide opening doors.

It is cleverly designed to maximise interior space with innovations like sculpting out the door trims as far as possible to create the widest armrests. Instead of a narrow ledge, the 95mm full-depth rest rivals cars from the luxury sector.

Visually, there's no mistaking it's a Nissan with the grille and bumper arrangement mirroring the Qashqai and X-Trail.

The styling is safe, but neat touches include bonnet creases which merge with the V-shape grille and Nissan says that by emphasising the wheel arch areas, the design team have created a car with a muscular, confident stance. The 17-inch diamond cut alloys on this model also enhanced the look.

The interior too is pretty classy, with mostly decent soft touch finish together with some lesser quality harsh plastic finish, particularly on the doors around the door handles.

The centre console houses the 5.8 inch screen which houses the NissanConnect infotainment system.

The display can be set to show turn-by-turn navigation commands, advice and warnings and car performance data systems, such as indicator, wiper and lock settings. Dials and switchgear are clear, legible and logically placed.

The whole interior has a roomy feel, with plenty of light entering te cabin.

The split rear seats allow stowage space to increase from a very respectable 385 litres to 1,395 litres, seeing off competitors like the Focus.

The power units and handling are impressive, as they need to be, given the opposition. The 1.2 litre turobcharged unit tested here is mated to a six-speed manual gearbox and has plenty of grunt.

The 115bhp unit powers the car to 60mph from a standing start in just 10.7 seconds, but delivers good economy and low CO2 emissions of 56.5mpg and 117g/km. In the real world, economy proved to be nearer 46mpg, but still pretty impressive.

It is also a refined unit with very little engine noise, or road or wind noise for that matter entering the cabin.

Handling is good. The car feels stable and assured on corners, with only faintest of hints of wallowing.

There are four trim levels, Visia, Acenta, n-tec and Tekna and all models come with air conditioning, five-inch display screen, alloy wheels and electric windows all-round.

In addition there is Nissan's Safety Shield system with object detection lane departure warning, and blind spot monitoring.

The NissanConnect system that offers integration with smartphones and full satellite navigation functions.

The model tested also had fitted as standard a reversing camera, sat nav, climate and cruise control, intelligent start button and rain sensing wipers.

Safety kit is comprehensive with tyre pressure monitoring, six airbags, and stability control, plus ISOFIX child seat anchors as standard across the range.

Other kit available, depending on trim, include Safety Shield technology, which includes a standard-fit low-speed collision avoidance system on Acenta models and above.