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These are confusing days. Crossovers and segment-blurring mongrels are leaching across all the old boundaries. We've had MPV-SUVs, coupe-saloons, and the first SUV-coupes are only a year or two up the pipe.

If any manufacturer can't dragoon enough buyers for its regular hatchbacks, it soon casts the net elsewhere. Anywhere really. And the convoys of mutants are making my little head spin.

Look at Nissan. It can't make headway with the Almera. So, it's slunk away from the mainstream of hatches, to be replaced on the Sunderland production line by the Qashqai. Crazy name, crazy car. Or so they'd have you believe. A car selling at family hatch prices, driving like a family hatch, but with the high bodywork and chunky looks that people love in an SUV.

Nissan says that's a unique idea. Nissan is talking cobblers. Anyone remember the Honda HR-V? The Qashqai is wedging itself into the barely visible fissure between the Suzuki SX4 (aka Fiat Sedici) on the one hand and the RAV4 on the other.

But isn't that where the Dodge Caliber is? Yes, but the Caliber is FWD only. The Qashqai has a 4WD option, even though Nissan expects nearly every one sold will be FWD. But whatever, the Qashqai isn't unique. Not that that need count against it, not if it's any good.

The Toyota Auris isn't meant to be unique. That's the intriguing thing really. On the very day that Nissan launched the Qashqai, admitting it couldn't get away with a mainstream Euro-style hatchback, its larger Japanese rival Toyota launched, you guessed it, a mainstream Euro-style hatchback. Rude not to compare them, really.

They both have hopeless names. You try typing Qashqai (say cash-kai) without typing two Us and having to delete them afterwards.

And Auris, well, once the Toyota people stopped themselves calling it Yaris, which they did several times, they settled on Auris with the first syllable rhyming not with awe, but with cow, and de-emphasising the second syllable. It was all a bit Father Jack: 'Shoite! Feck! Auris!'

The other thing is, the Auris replaces the Corolla, and it's amazing that Toyota has ditched that old faithful name. They say it's because the car is an absolute step-change. Like Escort to Focus.

Hmm. Not to look at it isn't. It's neat enough, tautly surfaced about the flanks, and wears its height well, the tallness giving impressive room in the cabin. But you'll never buy an Auris as a design classic, or even a design statement like a C4 or Civic.

Things get better inside, where a 'bridge' centre console rises high between the front occupants' knees, putting the gearlever and handbrake in handy positions.