As you say, there are plenty of four-wheel-drive estates on the market, but not many of those are available with a petrol engine and a manual gearbox.

You don't mention your budget, but one option that springs to mind is the Skoda Octavia Scout. This was available with the 1.8-litre TSI engine, which provides 160PS and useful performance. It also has four-wheel-drive as standard, and because it is an on-demand system it will only send drive to the rear wheels when required, which means better fuel consumption than a permanent AWD system. The Octavia Scout also offers excellent boot space, comfort and comes with roof rails as standard.