Overall rating:

If you're living with the fear that you and your five kids will get stranded in the coming winter's snow - just like last year, and the year before - the Alhambra 4x4 might have you beating SEAT's door down.

Key Facts

Pricing: £28,500 (est.)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder TDI turbodiesel
Transmission: Six-speed manual, four-wheel drive
Body style: five-door MPV
Rivals: VW Caravelle 4Motion, SsangYong Rodius, VW Sharan
CO₂ emissions: 158g/km
Combined economy: 47.1mpg
Top speed: 120mph
0-62mph: 11.4 seconds
Power: 138bhp at 4,200rpm
Torque: 236lb.ft at 1,750rpm

In the Metal:

It's not pretty, especially in the shade of brown that SEAT tends to use for its press cars, but the Alhambra is unashamedly form over function; it's the antithesis of the knowingly anti-box Ford S-Max.

But along with the identikit VW Sharan, it's probably the classiest MPV on the market and certainly up there with the Exeo as SEAT's best made product - and we all know where that comes from. As well as having every build quality characteristic we tritely attribute to all VW Group products, the Alhambra has a decent handful of useful versatility flourishes, including sliding doors and rear chairs that can turn to baby seats.

Driving it:

It's the concept of the SEAT Alhambra 4x4 that makes it interesting, rather than a change in the driving experience - there isn't really one. It's only available with the core 138bhp 2.0-litre TDI engine and a manual gearbox, and takes half a second more to hit 62mph than the version not burdened by a 90kg Haldex clutch, but in normal conditions you'll not tell the difference.

Slight lethargy aside, this is a well-rounded driving experience, whose most endearing qualities are a sumptuous ride and eerie low-speed silence befitting a luxury car. Light steering and a general sense of mechanical integrity add to those to make this one of the least frustrating, least sloppy vans you're likely to drive. Obviously it does sharp corners with all the awkwardness of a Page Three girl presenting a popular music awards ceremony, but in the same way, that's not really what it was made for so it's a bit harsh to expect anything else.

The point here is the four-wheel drive system though, right? The truth is, because we drove the car in dry, smooth Spanish roads, we can't confirm whether it will conquer next winter's snow, but we can confidently predict competence - it is, after all, the proven system found in a number of other VW applications.

What you get for your Money:

SEAT will charge around £2,500 extra for the 4x4 Alhambra, compared to the 2.0-litre TDI SE model on which it will be based. It means your do-it-all Spanish people carrier will cost close to £30,000 with a couple of options. It's cheaper than an equivalent VW Sharan, and well equipped, but still a lot compared to, say, a mid-range Citroen C4 Grand Picasso.

Worth Noting

What we've alluded to, but not mentioned specifically yet, is that SEAT UK is still to decide whether to bring the Alhambra 4x4 here. As with all things it's a business case issue: will the demand be high enough to justify the cost of engineering a right-hand drive version? It doesn't seem like there's a market: there are currently two four-wheel drive MPVs for UK buyers - a VW Caravelle and a SsangYong Rodius - but they sell in relatively tiny numbers.

Of course, we're all starting to get our heads around bleak, snowy winters now, and the halt they can grind us to, right?

Summary

It'll be a brave move if SEAT decides to bring the four-wheel drive Alhambra to the UK, but it might just prove to be a significant one. For some, there's an insurmountable social ignominy attached to 4x4 ownership, but given the last couple of winters, also a genuine need for the mobility they provide. Question is, do you place £2,500 or so value on getting across some snow for a couple of weeks, or would you rather save the money and have a few stranded days 'working from home'?