Nissan believes its new hi-tech Primera will be the most advanced medium sized car available when it goes on sale on March 1.

Priced from £14,600, the new Primera has set out to break the rules of its sector.

Initially there will be a choice of four-door saloon or five-door estate. Four trim levels will be available known as S, SE and SVE and a top-of-the-range T-spec.

These will be available with three different engines: a 1.8-litre 116 horsepower unit with manual or automatic gearboxes, a 2.0-litre 140 horsepower unit with six-speed manual or Nissan's VT 'box which offers the driver a choice of automatic or manual gear selection, and a 2.2-litre 126 horsepower turbo-diesel with six-speed manual gearbox. Five-door hatchback variants follow in the summer. The car will be priced from £14,600 for the 1.8-litre S four-door saloon, rising to £21,800 for the T-specification VT estate. Nissan says the new Primera is not just being built in the UK, but the car's suspension has been specially tuned in the UK for our roads. Inside the car, Nissan's unique approach has allowed all controls for audio, driver information, communication, DVD navigation and climate systems to be packaged into one electronically managed keyboard.

The information is displayed on a monochrome screen on the Primera S and a larger colour screen on SE and SVE versions. On these models, the screen also acts as the display for the rear view camera -- put the car in reverse and a small camera positioned above the rear number plate shows the driver what is behind. A cluster of six buttons is centrally aligned below the display. These are graphically reproduced on the screen and change function according to the menu selected. Two large circular switches operate the most frequently fiddled-with functions, the in-car entertainment and climate control.