I had to work out a couple of scenarios before I could put the Renault RX4 Scenic in its place. After all, it comes into a pricey area of the market in this guise. So why would one want to pay the same for a compact MPV as for a full-size one in another marque?

Maybe because it makes sense in certain contexts.

Like, for instance, if I lived about 12 miles east from where I do, and there is a more regular likelihood of frosted or snowbound roads in the rolly old granite hills of Wicklow, and where I might also be tempted to trundle up into forest roads on the odd day (or my own driveway might even be such a road).

Or maybe I could have a family of teens, who have to be ferried thither and yon, and one or more are into stuff like sailboarding, which requires decent loading space for the gear and the occasional ability to get in and out of seaside sandtraps.

A standard Scenic, the car which introduced and still more or less leads the compact MPV segment, won’t quite cut the mustard in relatively extreme conditions. A standard 4x4 won’t be nearly comfortable on ordinary road motoring, and anyway will be a lot more expensive to buy in the LWB version required ... not to mention the fact that the kids won’t relish being dropped around in something ‘uncool’.

Roll out the RX4. Because it is 4WD, though without the lower ratios, and because it has a highish road (and ruts) clearance, it will deal nicely with the frost or snow, the better forest mudroads, or the beachy seasides.

Because it is petrol-powered - a 2-litre unit - it has the lugging capacity to not be worried about gear in the boot, exhausted sailboarders in the middle, and the boards themselves on the roof.

Because it has a plethora of protective plastic panels around all the important places, it has a butch aspect that is attractive without seeming threatening, and leaves the standard Scenic looking a little wimpish. Yet even the miniature integral ‘bull-bar’ ahead of the radiator is clearly pedestrian-friendly.

The rear door is related in no way to that on the standard car, being a big heavy unit with an integrated protected stowage area for the spare wheel. Given that owners may not want to be opening and closing this every time there’s a small thing to be stowed away, the upper glass part opens up separately, handy for dropping in the bag of oranges or the wet togs. There’s also a handy gimmick with the rear shelf by which you can place it lower to the boot floor ... again a handy way of dealing with a bundle of not-too-heavy items such as beach towels while leaving other things undisturbed underneath.

The inside stowage areas we’re used to in Scenic are all there still, including boxes under the front seats and more places under the middle section floor.

This particular RX4 was the second I’d driven, and came with a leather-trimmed upholstery that both looked and felt good. Kind of think it would stand up very well to tough treatment too.

The driving position - and everybody else’s in the car - is high, and great if you feel claustrophobic in traffic. I have no doubt that the hassle factor with kids is much less in a high vehicle like this than it is in a car on the same footprint.

On the road, the RX4 doesn’t seem quite as smooth as its more standard siblings, probably because of the full-time 4WD system, and I also found that I needed to get down into first gear more than I would expect in an ordinary car while trundling around the housing estate. Possibly the second gear is unusually long-legged? No matter, you quickly get used to it.

The 4WD also takes its toll on fuel consumption, and I found my average over the time working out around 31mpg, though this included quite a bit of urban driving.

But what was really important was that by the time I had to give the car back, I had grown immensely fond of it. I felt good, felt it looked good, and was only sorry that I didn’t have a sailboarder in the family to put it actually through the paces of the scenarios I’ve painted above.

Only sorry too that they don’t have a version with Renault’s excellent 2-litre turbo-diesel, because then they’d have quite a winner here for people who want a vehicle for an active lifestyle. It’s the kind of vehicle the RX4 is, rather than being a so-called ‘lifestyle vehicle’.

There is a difference, you know.