Now it gets stranger. It turns out I am on the right launch after all, and the Alteas are Toledos. This is proved when I walk round to a Toledo's rear end and spy its pert bottom. It has a vestigial boot: yes, a not-quite-MPV with a bit sticking out the back. Thus the Toledo can compete in the saloon market in which its predecessor was so popular, in Spain anyway.

I open the boot. In fact it's a hatchback, whose hinges and epic gas struts must have massively exercised the minds of engineers not allowed home until they had made the not-quite-MPV Altea into a saloon called Toledo. Well, they probably said, this will have to do. It's not a saloon, but maybe the buyers won't notice.

So SEAT hopes to snare buyers toying with Scenics and Mondeos with equal zeal, knowing that those diverse cars' differences can really be distilled into the shape of a tailgate and an extra 180mm of overhang. Oh yes, and some Toledos also have built-in Bluetooth and an MP3 player, and the information display is different.

If you're not throughly confused by now, you'll probably want to know how it drives. Well, like a taller Audi A3, whose Golf-family platform it shares. The 2.0 FSI engine is quite lively, the 2.0 16V TDI is punchier and can be had with the excellent DSG gearbox, the 1.9 TDI we'll ignore and the 1.6-litre, bizarrely, isn't the FSI even though SEAT once said it always wanted the VW group's sportiest engines.

The electric power steering is accurate if too virtual-reality in its feel, the ride is good, the hard-plastic cabin is a riot of pretend carbonfibre. And no, there will be no Cupra version, never mind a V6. 'Too extreme,' says SEAT. For what? An MPV?