Fiat Bravo   Women's view

Fiats Bravo brings a welcome dose of style to the Family Hatchback sector. June Neary tries it

* The PracticalitiesThough this isnt the largest car in the class, theres a decent amount of luggage space in that curved rump. And that pretty much sums up the practicality of this Italian offering. It isnt really class-leading in any one aspect but it gets close enough in all of them to leave you not minding and still admiring that pretty shape.

I wasnt expecting too much from the interior. Fiat cabins have tended in the past to be rather Fisher Price for my tastes but this one is a huge improvement. Not only does it feel well built but its also welcoming, courtesy of bright finish plastics that lift the interior ambiance. I also liked the fact that the controls are easy to figure out without recourse to the manual.

It all looks agreeably Italianate as well. Fiat has really got the hang of the whole soft-touch dashboard moulding in recent years and as one of my Road Test colleagues pointed out, the new Bravos supple, textured finish wouldnt look out of place in an Audi. That says it all really. The one thing I did expect was plenty of equipment.

I was especially impressed by the amount of safety gear Fiat has packed into this car. Winner of a coveted five-star Euro NCAP crash safety rating, the Bravo sits squarely at the top of its category with a total of 33 points on the NCAP scorecard. Its design is apparently the product of over 60 crash tests, 15,000 hours of computer simulations, 150 simulations with a crash sled and more than 100 crash tests on components and subsystems. The cabin features two front airbags, two front side bags, two window bags and a knee airbag for the driver.

For a family buyer, its all most reassuring. To avoid you crashing in the first place and activating that simulated bouncy castle-style airbag set-up, theres ABS anti-lock braking with electronic brakeforce distribution and the latest generation ESP stability control system. The ESP system includes functions such as anti-slip regulation (ASR) to limit wheelspin in slippery conditions, and engine torque regulation which prevents the driven wheels locking up during rapid downshifts. Hydraulic brake assist boosts pedal pressure in emergency situations and theres even a hill-holder function to take the aggravation out of hill starts.

Close enough for me anyway. I dont drive like Lewis Hamilton, nor do I want to. Nor, I suspect, do the majority of potential buyers for this car. For all of us, its quite enough that this car provides sharp enough handling through a series of twisties and a selection of engines that is, by and large, better than the more obvious Ford Focus and Vauxhall Astra offerings.

Petrol engines first. The range opens with a 90bhp normally aspirated 1.4-litre unit. Most buyers however, will go for the responsive turbocharged versions of this engine in either 120 or 150bhp guise.

These use the latest turbocharger technology to offer punchy performance with decent fuel economy and low exhaust emissions. The diesel engines are probably the ones to go for however. Fiat has a well deserved reputation for being good with diesel power. Two 1.

9-litre MultiJet diesels are offered, again with either 120 or 150bhp. The more powerful diesel was the one I tried and has some real muscle to it, getting the new Bravo from rest to 62mph in 9.0 seconds and topping 130mph. With 305Nm of pulling power available, its not going to have any problem putting irksome white van men in their place.

You really notice this when driving around town or bumbling about on the school run: its almost like driving an automatic. You just stick the car into a gear and leave it there. Theres no rowing the car up and down the road with the gearlever as you tend to have to do in urban conditions with some petrol-engined rivals.

* Could I Live With One?Looks are very important to me. And if I can have them in a car thats extremely class competitive in virtually every other area, then so much the better. All of which means that were I to be shopping in this sector, this Bravo would be pretty near the top of my shopping list.