THERE'S no stopping Nissan's 4x4 march - and with smart, sensible cars such as the Qashqai crossover in its stable, would anyone really want to?

The firm's UK car sales were up a whopping 46 per cent for the first three months of this year against 2007 figures for the same period, and its innovative compact crossover, the Qashqai, contributing greatly towards that impressive performance.

The Qashqai is now a top-seller in the crossover segment and it will be joined in October here in Britain by a seven-seater version - called the Qashqai+2.

The decision to add a third row of seats was motivated by Nissan's product research, which shows that there are families out there who want extra people-carrying convenience, but do not want it in the form of a standard MPV.

Enter the longer Qashqai+2, which stretches the standard model's 4.31-metre length to 4.52 metres, and gets a re-profiled rear end to provide more headroom. That results in the seven-seater being 38mm higher, too, which also brings headroom benefits for front and middle-row passengers.

Other styling changes include larger side windows at the rear of the vehicle, and both front and rear doors have been restyled.

The window frames of the front door are more square, to match the re-profiled roofline, while the rear doors' pair are longer, and also more square.

Created by designers at Nissan Design Europe in London's Paddington, and being built at the firm's highly productive plant in Sunderland, the Qashqai+2 will offer a choice of two petrol and two diesel versions, with Nissan revealing full prices and specifications nearer to the October launch date. Petrol engine sizes will be 1598cc, and 1997cc, with the diesels having 1.5 and 2.0-litre displacements.

The Qashqai+2's extra chairs have been designed for children, or as occasional seats for small adults up to about 1.6-metres tall, and can be folded completely flat to increase luggage space.

The seats split on a 50/50 basis and each can be folded away simply by pulling on a single strap - cleverly, there is no need to remove head restraints first.

When both of those rear seats are folded away, there's a large flat loading area, which provides almost 500 litres of luggage capacity - that's an increase of 90 litres over the standard Qashqai.

At the top, very serious, end of the 4x4 market, Hummer has announced a more capable, more comfortable H2 model.

For 2008, the H2 gets a new 6.2-litre, V8 petrol engine with six-speed automatic transmission, which has a 20 per cent power increase over the previous unit - horsepower is now around the 390 mark, with equally massive amounts of torque on tap. Don't ask what the mpg figure is - Hummer isn't saying, but with H2 prices starting at £48,995, few owners will worry about frequent filling station stops. This off-roader is more about the muscle, and it can tow no less than 8,200lb, or 3,727 kilos, and climb to places that only a mountain goat would consider accessing.

With that in mind, the Hummer has a roll-over sensing system, full length curtain air bags, electronic stability control system with rollover mitigation technology, a new traction control system, plus tyre pressure monitoring.

New cabin materials, with leather upholstery, an optional third row of seats, and more tactile controls bolster the H2's luxury feel, and a centre stack houses climate controls and a new premium BOSE audio/surround-sound system.