Great car, shame about the reaction it gets

EVEN if everything else is going up it seems there’s still one commodity that’s cheap in our age of austerity. Looking like a berk behind the wheel.

Previously I’d long laboured under the belief that the least you’ll have to pay to look like an idiot on the highways and byways of Britain is £43,980 - the entry level price for the BMW X5 - but after two lucky breaks last week I’ve been able to find out it’s much cheaper than that.

It was after being invited to a party in a part of Liverpool that‘s usually on fire I realised all I needed was Mitsubishi’s latest Shogun, which unfortunately I happened to be driving that evening. It’s a very, very good car for ten grand south of what the BMW sets you back, but with bright white paintwork, alloys all round and a chrome grille straight out of the Wayne Rooney school of car styling it didn’t exactly blend into the world of dented Nissan Primeras and terraced houses I’d taken it to. It took less than five minutes before the local yoof had made it that night’s target practice.

Genuinely frightened that I’d get a £35k off-roader that wasn’t mine keyed, burnt out or stolen by a gang who’d taken exception to my choice of chariot, I jumped straight back in and hotfooted it to safer streets, which I’m sure in anything else - even one of Mitsubishi’s smaller 4x4s - wouldn’t have been called for, and it’s been the same since. The Shogun just seems to offend people.

For all its low-down grunt, acres of space, and off-road ability I just couldn’t recommend the solid Shogun to anyone in austerity-era Britain, because you just feel antisocial driving it. I honestly didn’t think it would come across as in-yer-face as a Range Rover Sport or an X5, but it seems in 2010 ANY big off-roader is going to attract stones, dirty looks and flicked fingers. I actually felt embarrassed to be behind the wheel.

But don’t worry if you can’t afford £34,999 for a Shogun, because at the Woodvale Rally a few days later I discovered it’s far easier and cheaper to get personalised number plates. Mine cost just £15.

Luckily for me, I can’t legally use it on the public road anyway, meaning my new moniker is limited to just the few days a year I take it to classic car shows, but the fact is that I now own a number plate that reads 51 MMY.

Geddit?