On the road: Toyota Verso-S –

Toyota Verso-S: It should pretending to be something it isn’t, it’s actually pretty at what it is. Photograph: Simon for the Guardian

What does S stand for, the one after in the name of this car? You think it would stand for but you’d be wrong. Unless the in question is crown green

There is actually a button with Sport written on it. But it doesn’t seem to make any at all. Possibly it whines a bit when I put my foot down, a sewing machine tackling a curtain, but I don’t think it any faster. Maybe the S stands for machine. Or sluggish. Or senile.

The Verso-S is available only a 1.3-litre petrol engine, but you can between a manual six-speed or automatic continuously variable (CVT). I’ve got the latter, allows me to switch to manual the mood takes me and I’m a bit crazy. It has flappy gear paddles on the steering wheel a Ferrari or a Formula One car, – along with that S, the button, and the tinted rear – seem incongruous. More incongruous, bloody ridiculous. And As if I, an out-of-shape middle-aged man, to wear nothing but a leopard-print

The Verso-S is actually more when it’s in automatic so there doesn’t seem to be any to flapping the flappy flaps. car should stop pretending to be it isn’t. Because it’s pretty good at what it is – a no-frills, no-thrills, economical Sensible, maybe that’s that S stands for.

Or spacious. It may not be especially clever or in the way the seats fold away. But it bigger inside than it on the outside, and there’s plenty of leg in the back thanks to its cunningly front seats.

There is one button in this one does make a difference – it back a blind to reveal a panoramic glass roof. I do a panoramic glass roof in a Not only does it make it so brighter inside, but it also up all sorts of possibilities for when stuck in traffic. Ornithology, spotting, stargazing. Stargazing – that’s what that S for. Except that the roof comes only in the spec T-spirit model. And it all goes a bit wrong when I under a tree frequented by birds, during the blackberry meaning) season. Which that I’m then around beneath a canopy of guano. I think we know S stands for now.

* Actually, I am.

Toyota Verso-S

as tested £17,313

Top speed

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