There really is nothing quite like the Inster currently on the road. With its exaggerated features and tiny dimensions it’s like an SUV after an intense boil wash. The narrowness stands out most; at just 1610mm wide, it’s 401mm narrower than the new Renault 5.

Rather underwhelmingly, the standard colour across the entire range is called Natural Ivory, which looks a little like sun-bleached white plastic. There’s a range of vibrant metallic and striking matt colours available, but these come at an extra cost. The matt olive and khaki greens add some Action Man credentials it probably doesn’t deserve.

Base-spec models make do with tiny four-spoke 15-inch wheels, stepping up to 17-inch wheels on the mid-spec 02. The larger wheels suit the arches far better. The top-spec Inster Cross gains a smattering of extra tough-looking plastic cladding, larger roof rails and different alloy wheel design that almost looks like steelies. There’s still no off-roading prowess, though, despite what the Cross name may imply.

I personally think it looks fantastic, but several people have gone out of their way to tell me they think it looks ungainly and awkward. Either way, it catches the eye and gets you talking about it.

There’s a pleasant nippiness to the Inster, despite some rather modest performance figures. Our test car, with the long-range battery, has a 0-62mph time of 10.6 seconds courtesy of 113bhp and 147Ib ft of torque. The top speed is 93mph.

Despite those underwhelming numbers, it feels eager and zippy, happily overtaking and rapidly getting up to speed on slip roads. Acceleration beyond 60mph becomes more leisurely, but there’s an encouraging alertness at lower speeds. There’s a Sport mode that sharpens the accelerator response and adds some racy carbonfibre-effect graphics to the dials. It’s no miniature Ioniq 5 N, though.

The combination of narrow, short and tall may summon up memories of cars with utterly hopeless handling such as the Perodua Kenari and Suzuki Wagon R, but you can disregard such concerns. The Inster feels safe, planted and sharp. As a small car that’ll spend most of its life darting through cities, the steering is suitably quick and tidy. Push it into a tight corner with some speed and the rear can begin to feel light, but the stability control will sort everything out.

You can dial up or down the level of regenerative braking, and there’s a ‘one-pedal’ drive mode that not only works well in town but is also pretty easy to adapt to at higher speeds. However, slowing by easing off the throttle isn’t to everyone’s liking, so it’s a shame the actual brakes aren’t great. They suffer from a soft initial feeling that can be a little disconcerting; some extra bite would be more reassuring.

The ride is far from the softest in the class but it handles awful road surfaces well enough. Occasionally a pothole or expansion joint will echo through the cabin at low speeds, but generally it’s far from crashy.

Onboard refinement is good, with minimal motor or tyre noise. There’s a fair bit of blustering from the door mirrors at motorway speeds, but no more than you find with most other cars of this size and price.

On paper the Inster looks to be at a disadvantage with its tiny external dimensions and layout as a strict four-seater. The reality is, though, that the Inster makes good use of the room it does have.

Space is plentiful upfront, with generous head, leg, shoulder and elbow room. The driver’s seat incorporates two cupholders and an armrest, and expands right against the passenger seat, almost forming a bench.

The dashboard is angled like a van’s, which helps amplify the available interior space and presents plenty of housing for storage nooks, physical buttons, screens and a shelf, complete with ambient lighting.

On first inspection the boot space looks to be meagre at just 238 litres. Easy to use – no loading lip and extra space below a false floor that’s prime storage for charging cables – but not big. And there’s no frunk.

But the Inster has a neat party trick in the form of sliding rear seats. Pull them all the way forward and boot space swells to a much more competitive 351 litres, which is not far off the boot found in the externally larger Fiat Grande Panda.

Yes, it’s a compromise: either lots of lounging room in the rear if you don’t mind minuscule boot space, or an okay boot and rather restricted rear leg room. Either way, the rear seat can’t fit three – a result of the car’s narrowness.

There’s another neat trick inside: the seats – all four of them – can be folded flat to covert the Inster’s cabin into a makeshift bed, roomy and comfortable enough for an impromptu night of camping for one or two.

The 10.25-inch infotainment screen that’s fitted in every Inster is one of the best units available for a small car. It’s slick and packed with useful features as well some superfluous ones like pre-installed spa music. The graphics are sharp and the system is responsive, even if it’s not running Hyundai’s latest infotainment system.

In our week with the car it was free from the glitches some other cars are blighted by. It simply worked.

There are physical buttons for, among other things, the heating controls. Beneath these buttons is a neat little cubbyhole with a wireless charging pad that’s the perfect storage spot for a mobile phone. It all looks sleek until I try to set up Apple CarPlay and realise it requires a wired connection and leaves an unsightly cable dangling out the dashboard. The same is true for Android Auto. This feels like a bungled opportunity.

Glance further down and there’s another storage nook and below that, in return for an extra £500, you can get a 16-amp three-pin plug socket as part of the Tech pack. This allows for vehicle to load, or V2L, charging, which effectively turns the Inster into the world’s oddest-looking portable generator, ready to power whatever’s plugged into it – kettles, campsite lighting, or even another EV.

Frustratingly, this attractive and well thought-out cabin is let down by some of the plastics used. You won’t be in the car long before you touch one or more parts made of plastic that doesn’t feel as soft and smooth and it looks.

We’re yet to drive an Inster in the depths of winter, so can’t give a conclusive assessment of how the battery performs, but initial findings are looking positive.

In pleasant 20ºC weather, I set out to discover just what happens when you run the small Hyundai down to an indicated zero miles of range, covering a mixture of dual carriageway, country roads and urban streets.

The first warning message flashes up with 20 per cent charge remaining, supplemented with a polite bonging and recommendation to use the in-built sat-nav to find the nearest charging point. I press OK to make the message go away. I continue in the Normal driving mode with everything working as it had before, the only visual difference being that the battery symbol on the driver’s display is now orange.

This continues until I reach 10 per cent, where there’s a second flash and encouragement again to find a nearby public charger. Again I press OK to make the message disappear. The difference this time is the Inster reduces performance. It’s still more than capable of keeping up with traffic, but the accelerator pedal requires more force to build speed as acceleration takes a noticeable knock. It does the job well, making sure you’re aware of the need to ease off.

There are no more bongs or alerts more until I get down to zero per cent battery and zero miles on the estimated range. At this point a tiny – and rather cute – turtle symbol appears on the dashboard and performance is further restricted. It’s noticeably slower now but all functions remain usable, even the air-con, as I make my way to the nearest charger.

The smooth, steady drive down to zero returned an efficiency figure of 4.4 miles per kWh – a strong performance, bearing in mind that the WLTP official figure for a more mixed journey is 4.1 miles per kWh.