Estate cars with four-wheel drive may be niche products, but it’s a niche worth exploring if you tour all year round.
The Subaru Outback is a sound choice, albeit rather a pricey one. There’s plenty of passenger room, and 526 litres of luggage space with the back seats upright. We found space for most, but not all, our holiday luggage.
Soft suspension offers a comfortable ride, but it does the Subaru no favours in the lane-change test. The van pulled the car off course at speeds that the best cars in this class coped with easily.
The electronic parking brake held the outfit on the 1-in-6 slope, but rather a lot of revs and clutch slip were needed to climb the hill.