Honda Crosstar is a clever box of tricks

109g/km. Claimed mpg remains at 58.9mpg and you stand a pretty good chance of getting that… or better. Much depends on your driving style.

Thile people seem to be opting for ever bigger cars, we shouldn’t forget the fun, value and sheer practicality that superminis offer.

Cheaper to buy and run, they’re a complete hoot in and around town, navigating cramped city streets while slotting into parking spaces with ease. Cars like the Honda Jazz are proper little stress busters.

The latest version of Honda’s popular supermini features some modest styling upgrades with most attention being given to further tweaking the Jazz’s excellent petrol-electric hybrid engine.

While fully electric vehicles are getting a lot of headlines, hybrids still outsell them by around two to one. That’s because some buyers aren’t ready to make the switch to fully electric, either because they’re too expensive or they’re concerned about range and/or charging.

Hybrids for their part are being constantly refined to deliver lower emissions and higher mpg and while a ban on diesel and petrol cars is coming, you’ll still be able to buy a new hybrid at least until 2030 and used ones for years after that.

Knowing our proclivity for high riding SUVs, Honda even has a beefed-up version of the little Jazz called the Crosstar (tested here). It takes the top-level spec Jazz, raises the ride height a bit and adds some meatier external trim like bespoke bumpers, side sills and roof rails.

The real clever stuff though is under the skin. The e:HEV system in the latest Jazz combines two electric motors, a battery and a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine mated to an automatic transmission. Improvements to the motors and engine have lifted power output from 108bhp to 120bhp, while emissions are an impressively low

The Jazz Crosstar will happily zip along A roads and motorways but it’s most at home in cities. That’s because at low speed and for short distances, the Jazz Crosstar will run on EV mode only. When not in EV mode, it will likely be in hybrid mode, with the engine effectively working as a generator to charge the battery that feeds the motor.

Only at higher speeds does the engine intervene to drive the front wheels directly. It sounds complicated but the driver needn’t worry about any of this. The transition between these various systems operates in the background… indeed you often find yourself glancing at the dashboard to check whether you’re still in EV mode, so seamless is the process.

There are other equally compelling reasons for considering the Jazz or Jazz Crosstar. It’s one of the most cleverly packaged small cars around. There’s a nice high driving position in the Crosstar especially, a light, airy cabin and simply acres of very usable space throughout.

At around 300 litres, the boot is decent but the real fun comes when you start to play around with the rear seats. These can be collapsed completely flat – right down to the floor – to open up a mammoth 1,205 litres of space. The boot opening is also wide and tall, which makes getting things in and out a doddle.

The Jazz range comprises Elegance, Advance, Advance Sport and Crosstar, which is essentially Advance trim with mini-SUV-like embellishments.

The Advance Sport is an ambitious move for a model that has traditionally appealed to older buyers, introducing sportier interior and exterior trim as well as stiffened suspension and the promise of a livelier driving experience.

The range kicks off at £25,900 with top line Advance Sport and Crosstar models coming in at just over £28,000. That’s pricey for this segment but Hondas are well-built and reliable with good residuals and high customer satisfaction scores.