10 Aug 07
What an education that was. I spent a huge part of my six months with a Mitsubishi L200 trying to justify or at least explain why I was in a big, heavy four-wheel-drive pick-up truck. Now more than ever, people are questioning the point of such vehicles. Their assumptions and indeed their facts are often wrong, but some of their criticisms cut uncomfortably close to the bone.
Our kids have no such reservations and they're far unhappier than I am about the end of our time with the L200. It's the twin-cab version with proper rear seats, and it's in Elegance trim, which involves many of the luxuries you associate with the posher end of SUV territory, including leather upholstery and sat nav. With its 165bhp power upgrade chip and various extras, including an Armadillo roll-top cover and an aluminium liner for the load deck, this is a car worth more than £23,000.
Even though it sometimes suggested bizarre routes, the sat nav was endlessly fascinating for children more used to being driven around in much older cars, such as the 1990 Mercedes 230 TE that is now once again our daily transport. In fact, it was almost exclusively children who were impressed by the L200, rather than our adult friends.
Kids like the fact that it's big and shiny, and they aren't hung up on the 4x4 debate - unlike the cyclist who went out of his way to tell me that it was a 'stupid f***ing car', almost leading me to turn into the thug that he seemed to think I was. After a while you become fairly immune to this sort of abuse, and it forces you to apply some proper thinking to the woolly-headed crap people spout about 4x4s. I'm not sure I like them much myself, but they are not the work of the Devil. It's more a question of taste; the only one I'd buy with my own money would be a MkI Range Rover in beige with the hose-out interior.
