Though Jeremy Clarkson is the guy I’m most likely to kick in his arthritic hip and then pee on his lame excuse for hair. (Hint: Jeremy, you can abuse Americans all you want. We will always be the country that wiped our feet on the British Empire first)

Anyway, they reviewed the Nissan Juke the other night, and they had the same thing to say about it as me: Not cool. A car which answers a question nobody is asking. In looks, functionality, and utility, it’s a Taurus Judge. it’s the crossover that has a trunk the size of a Honda Civic, apparently, the seating comfort of a Humvee, the ground clearance of a Miata and the styling of a cancerous growth combined with the power and handling of a VW microbus.

I’ve gotten to drive a powerful lot of very nice cars; jags, porsches, benz sport coupes, one Ferarri, a Morgan, a lot of beemers and Audis. It’s cool and fun to drive a small car fast, and I like doing it. I dont’ like having to muscle my way in and out of one, and I have no illusions that if I wrecked one it would just about end up my coffin. In the later years of my life I might get something small and fast, or do as I do now and rent one from time to time, but my life and work lends itself a lot more to four wheel drive than four wheel steering, and it looks like it always will.