Jeremy Clarkson: What Could Possibly Go Wrong...

Then, of course, it’s time to sit down and choose some options for the car you’re buying. And this is a terrifying place to be because when you are spending £25,000 on the car, £200 sounds like nothing. So yes, you decide you’ll spend £200 on a DVD player and another £200 on metallic paint and another £200 on a sunroof, and pretty soon you notice Jason Orange has grown a third leg. By the time you’ve finished, the money you’re spending would be enough to clear up a medium-sized oil spill.

All of this, however, assumes you’ve been able to choose what sort of car you’d like to buy in the first place. Obviously, some people are swayed by balloons, or dealers would stop using them as a marketing tool. And many simply buy an updated version of what they have now. But some people insist on buying the car that best suits their needs. This is like being thrown, naked, into an acacia tree. You’re going to end up thrashing around for a while. And then you are going to become dead.

Let’s say, for instance, that you have a family. Many people do. So you’d think it might be a good idea to buy something practical. Obviously, you cannot have a Citroën Picasso or a Renault Scénic because nothing says you’ve given up on life quite so succinctly as a mini MPV.

Then you decide that the mini MPV would be all right if it had some Tonka toy styling, a raised ride height and perhaps four-wheel drive. Four-wheel drive implies that you go hunting for bears at the weekend, and besides, it will be useful should the snow come back.

So, you want lots of space, four-wheel drive and chunky styling. That’s narrowed your choice down to pretty well every single car maker in the world. And to make matters even more complicated, many of the cars that appear to be different… aren’t. Take the Citroën Cross-Dresser, for example, or the Peugeot 4007. Underneath, they are Mitsubishi Outlanders. They’re even built by Mitsubishi. So which do you pick?

Well, if you are suffering from rabies, forget the French offerings and go for the recently updated Japanese original. There are many symptoms of this debilitating ailment – agony and frothing at the mouth are two – but so is an extreme thirst. And on this front the Outlander scores well because it comes, in the front alone, with no fewer than five cupholders.

What’s more, in the back, there’s seating for five on two rows of seats. Though a word of warning here. Anyone volunteering to sit in the boot should remove their head and legs first.

Mitsubishi says there’s another reason for picking its offering. In the blurb, it claims the Outlander has a distinctive ‘jet fighter’ grille. Well, I’ve studied the front end for quite some time, and I don’t think this is quite correct, mainly because jet fighters don’t have grilles.

Perhaps the best reason for choosing the Itchy Pussy is because, unlike the rivals from Peugeot and Citroën, its 2.2-litre diesel engine comes with variable valve technology. That means fewer emissions, better power and more miles to the gallon. Absolutely, but it also means a very narrow power band and the consequent need to change gear every one and a half seconds. There’s even a light on the dash instructing you to shift up, constantly.

Other problems? Well, it’s boring to look at, boring to sit in and extremely boring to drive. It feels like the suspension and steering are made from cardboard. Apart from a few joke cars from the former Soviet Union, I cannot think of any other car that feels quite so inert.

Of course, if you are not an enthusiastic driver, this will not matter. You will be far more interested in the promise of great reliability, a genuinely good satellite navigation system and all those cupholders, in case you are bitten by a French dog.

But really, are you better off with this, or the Peugeot, or the Citroën, or the Land Rover Freelander, or the Nissan Kumquat or Honda CR-V, or a Ford or a Jeep or a Volkswagen? The answer, with cars of this type, is very simple. Since they are all largely the same, simply telephone the dealers, ask for their best price and buy whichever is the cheapest.

If you end up with the Outlander, it’s not the end of the world. But don’t expect the earth to move, either.

In the days of the cold war we knew we had four minutes to respond to the Soviet threat and we developed the hugely powerful English Electric Lightning fighter to deal with that. But up in the frozen north, Sweden had its face pressed against the Iron Curtain and needed even faster reactions. Which is why it came up with the Saab Viggen.

This was the most powerful single-engined fighter in the world. For a while it held the international speed record and it remains the only fighter to get a missile lock on an SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. It also packed the most powerful cannon and a very advanced radar. But it was a bit more than brute force and a big fist.

Because Sweden covered the West’s northern flank against the Soviet Union, the Scandawegians reckoned that if the balloon went up, their airfields would be destroyed in short order. So, when a Viggen’s nose wheel hit the deck, reverse thrust was triggered instantly, allowing the plane to stop in little more than 500 yards. This meant it could be operated from roads, frozen lakes, even school sports pitches. It was also extremely economical.

Unfortunately, the Swedish government refused to sell military hardware to any country it considered to be undemocratic. Which meant that the Swedish air force had to buy every Viggen that rolled off the production line. And that’s why, for a while, it was the fourth-largest air force in the world.

Still, at least there was one accounting upside, because here in Britain everyone thought that if they bought a Saab car, they were actually getting a Viggen with a tax disc. That still holds true today. But actually this hasn’t been entirely accurate for some time. And not only because the Viggen’s engine was made by Volvo.

In the early days, it’s true, the aircraft designers were employed to work on the car’s aerodynamics, but that stopped years back. The car is not a jet. It’s a Vauxhall Vectra in a moose suit.

Oh, Saab is still banging on about the aircraft connection. It fits a button that turns off all the dashboard lights at night, so you can feel like a night fighter pilot. But you don’t really. You just feel as if you might be running out of petrol.

Other features? Well, Saab says, ‘A wide range of functions can be pre-set according to personal preference.’ Sounds good. But one of the things listed is the clock. Yes. You can set it to whatever time you like! And another is the air-conditioning system. Wow! So it has a heater that can deliver a range of temperatures.

It seems, then, that I was dissing it unfairly when I said it was just a Vauxhall Vectra in an antler suit. In fact, it’s a Vauxhall Vectra with a heater and a clock. And a diesel engine that produces no torque at all. Technically, this isn’t possible. But somehow Saab seems to have managed it.

If you dribble up to a roundabout in second gear at 5 mph, spot a gap and put your foot down, you will roll into the gap you spotted, still doing 5 mph, only now the van driver you pulled out in front of is leaning on his horn, mouthing obscenities and wondering why you don’t get a bloody move on.

Once you’re moving, and provided you keep it in the right gear, the power is not too bad. But when the turbocharging is on song, the steering wheel does protest mightily, writhing about as though it’s in physical pain. And guess how much you’re expected to pay for all this. Yes, £29,000. That’s more than BMW asks for the 318 diesel estate.