It isn't a UK-market model just yet, but the Japanese specification Daihatsu, with myself in the back seat hanging on like a drunk on a fairground waltzer, was being thrown round one of the slipperiest test tracks at the MIRA research centre near Nuneaton.

I thought a well wrapped-up motor-cycle tester, taking his feet off the rests as he plunged his machine time after time into a water-filled trough, was having a fairly tough day. But I have rarely seen anybody outside a rally special stage going all-arms-and-elbows like the driver demonstrating a car fitted with Daihatsu's new Vehicle Stability Control System, while the electronics were switched off.

It seems astonishing that such a sophisticated system, combining anti-lock brakes, traction control and sideways skid control, should be about to come on the market as an extra-cost option on a budget-priced car like the new Daihatsu Cuore.

But the advantages are obvious. On a skid pan surfaced with slippery basalt, which was being sprayed with water all the time, the test-track Daihatsu would side-swipe furiously, forcing the driver into dizzy lock-to-lock manoeuvres, when hurled into the equivalent of a sudden 60kph lane-change.

However, when the DVS was switched on, the car simply refused, despite the driver's most brutal efforts, to lock brakes, plough head-first into the crash barriers, or start spinning like a peerie, even when the left-hand and right-hand tyres were on surfaces with different adhesion levels.

This was a very impressive demonstration of a facility I never thought to see on a Japanese city car which costs #6495 as the basic Cuore three-door and #7395 as the Cuore+ five-door. These prices are below the ones charged for the previous models, if you allow for the fact that the old Cuore+ didn't have power steering as standard, whereas the new one does.

Out on the road with a standard car, I thought the Cuore may still not have much in the way of front-seat elbow room, but the recent relaxation in the Japanese regulations about the maximum dimensions of cars in its tax bracket has certainly paid off. The latest model is a little wider, a little longer and a little lower, feels more robust and looks altogether much more satisfactory in UK conditions.

The interior is better packaged and trimmed. Rear seat passengers have more legroom, and there's still plenty of headroom there. Luggage space is modest, but just OK for such a compact car.

Daihatsu is well to the fore in three-cylinder engine design. The Cuore uses the new one-litre type introduced in the Sirion, featuring twin overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder, a 54bhp output and a very fair 61lb ft of torque at 3800rpm.

With something like 25% extra power, the new car out-performs the old one, and revs away with that characteristic three-pot beat. A tight turning circle makes it easy to manoeuvre in street traffic, but it's also more relaxed when being pressed on out of town.

The frugal running which appealed to owners of the previous 850cc Cuore is still there with the new 989cc engine. Manual transmission cars, which reach 60mph in under 16 seconds and have a test track maximum around 87mph, should manage about 43mpg in city traffic, 53mpg overall and something like 61mpg out on the open road.