REMEMBER the time when you could tell the size of the engine in the front of a car by walking round to the back?

There, proudly outlined in gleaming chrome, would be something like '2.0' or '1.5'. The bigger the better, really, as it showed the owner could afford the larger engine. More litres were a good thing.

Then the Germans started keeping the familiar numbers on the boot but changing the size of the working end of the car. So, a BMW 118 is a 1 Series with... a 1.5 litre engine. The Mercedes-Benz ML250 has an engine of... 2.1 litres. And so on, and on.

But now, for precisely the opposite reasons, car makers are leaving of any hint of engine size - because they might make the car look a bit weedy and underpowered.

Take Ford's big Mondeo. You can order yours with a tiddler of an engine doing the work (and very nicely too) but you'd pick up no points with a 1.0-litre badge on the back. Best leave it off then.

Ditto the car here. It's a modestly large and chunky crossover; that increasingly popular mix of estate and off-roader in looks that car buyers have taken to their hearts in a big way.

Big enough to raise a few eyebrows if there was a 1.2-litre badge on the boot. The fact that a turbocharger blows fuel into its three thrumming cylinders to produce utterly adequate performance might not register, so best keep quiet about size.

In fact, the powerplant is a highlight of this versatile machine; pulling lustily, almost like a keen diesel, but much quieter at low revs (you'll think the engine has stalled at the lights) and generally adding an unlikely sporting air to the car.

Three cylinders instead of the four you might expect puts the engine in line with lots of others from different manufacturers, all keen to exploit the reduced friction of one less piston in the march towards better economy.

They perform well in the official fuel consumption tests that all new cars have to take but which are now so far from a realistic figure they've become a cause of contention (you might have noticed).

The car bettered 54mpg in the laboratory but more than 500 miles of mixed use on proper roads saw a less worthy 42mpg on the dashboard trip readout. That's not bad for a car this size and this energetic but does point up the need for a more realistic test.

Need better economy and you can pick from a couple of diesels (1.6 and 2.0-litres) but they'll cost at least £1,100 more than the equivalent petrol version of the 3008. It comes in two trim levels, with the car's Allure spec putting £1,950 on to the price of a more basic Active trim car.

It looks like cash well spent, adding sat nav, reversing camera, front parking peepers, climate control, a huge fixed glass sunroof, head up display for speed and sat nav directions and larger 18in alloy wheels.

Stick with the petrol engine and this plush version of the 3008 still comes in as second least expensive of the eight-strong range. That makes it a bit of a bargain.