On the seventh day God didn’t rest, he looked at what he had created and thought: “Oh dammit, England’s gone all wrong. The sea is washing silt and rubbish off the beautiful coastlines I have created in the north and depositing them in an ugly bulbous lump near Kent.”

Today we call this unholy place East Anglia and I’m sure it’s all jolly lovely if you have a fondness for parsnips and so on. But you can tell it wasn’t part of God’s great plan because it’s so hard to get there. Certainly you don’t want to start from Chipping Norton, especially if you have a Land Rover.

For some reason I’ve never been able to fathom, motorways tend to go up and down the country rather than across it. So to reach Newmarket on a Tuesday you have to swim against the current, which is bad enough in any car but nigh on impossible in something that predates modern man.

The noise of the thing had me whimpering like a frightened animal by the time I’d reached Milton Keynes. Several hours later, as I lumbered past Bedford, I was in urgent need of a chiropractor and then, as I crested Cambridge, I began to wonder if I might be better off walking. Certainly it would have been faster and more comfortable.

Just stop now and think: what do you have in your life from the 1940s? That’s not old enough to be an antique nor modern enough to be of any use? You wouldn’t watch 24 on a 1940s television any more than you’d come down Mont Blanc on a pair of 1940s skis. And yet, unbelievably, Land Rover expects us to buy its 1940s car. This thing doesn’t have a chassis, it has foundations.

I know it’s cool and I know it works well off road, so if you’re a Chelsea florist or a soldier it’s fine. But everyone else, I suspect, will be put off by the noise, the driving position, the ride, the astonishing lack of space, the absence of any creature comforts, the lamentable performance, the appalling economy, the questionable safety and the Third World reliability.

I have this mental image of the Land Rover factory. It’s full of molten steel and is illuminated only by myriad sparks. Everywhere you look thousands of children in chains bang pieces of metal together. It’s not Dickensian, it’s way earlier than that. I’ll tell you what it’s like in my head: it’s like the medieval subterranean mine you saw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

And do you know what really galls me? This country has the engineering know-how to stay with the game, but we never do. We have a brilliant idea then sit back and do nothing with it — for ever.

The Mini went on for 40 years. Rolls-Royce relied on an engine from the 1950s and Bentley on the turbo from a truck. Were it not for German money these cars would still be soldiering on, and your new Range Rover would still have Mexican electrics.

Were it not for American investment, Jaguars would still break down all the time and Aston Martins would still be propelled by an engine from a time when France was fighting in Vietnam. We really are a bunch of bone idle geniuses.

At the other end of the scale there’s Japan. They make a new car and long before the advertisements are run on television there’s a new model in the wings with another even newer one pushing it onto the stage. Since the 1960s there have been nine generations of Toyota Corollas and seven different Honda Civics. They even make cars they can’t be bothered to export.

Mitsubishi is the arch-villain at this. Time and again word filters through that it has developed some amazing new car, but when you ring to find out if it will be sold in Britain the response is: “Oh that old thing.”

Do you remember the Mitsubishi Gallant VR4? It was astonishing, a blend of handsome styling with explosive turbocharged power and computerised, four-wheel-drive grip. Following enormous pressure Mitsubishi relented and said it would export the car to Britain, but sadly it was out of date and was dropped before the boat docked in Bristol.

And now it’s at it again with the Airtrek Turbo-R. On the face of it this is a rather unfortunate-looking jacked-up five-door estate car with a silly name. Airtrek makes it sound like a training shoe. But sticking the letter R after a car’s name lets you know that it means business. We have the Jaguar XJR, the Honda Civic Type-R, the Bentley Turbo R, the new VW Golf R32 and so on and so on.

R is the new GT. R is the opposite of D. R takes the concept of X, blends it with a soupçon of i and a bit of E so you end up at the outside of the envelope, way beyond Z.

The motoring world’s alphabet goes like this: R, Z, A, C, X, E, F, GT, I, L, O, S, D. This is definitely a non-U environment. H hasn’t been used since the Lancia Beta HPE went west, and when faced with the question of whether to B or not to B, most car firms decline.

But back to the Mitsubishi. It may not be on sale in Britain but a company called Xtreme Automobiles from Dudley in the West Midlands will import one if you furnish it with a cheque for very slightly less than £23,000. It will even throw in a three-year warranty.

Interesting. A Turbo-R imported by a company called Xtreme. It all sounds very snowboardish, but at first it’s hard to see why. Not only is the exterior completely unremarkable but the interior is finished and equipped like a Japanese bedroom.

When you turn the key no flames shoot out of the exhaust and dogs do not run screaming from their kennels. I’ll tell you what it sounds like: it sounds like a car.

However, what you’re looking at here is a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII in an overcoat. It has the same permanent four-wheel-drive system, a 240bhp version of the same 2 litre turbo engine and, despite the fitment of an automatic gearbox, the same sort of shattering performance: 0 to 60 is dealt with in 6sec.

Being so tall, it doesn’t have the same tenaciousness as an Evo VII but you couldn’t take an Evo VII off road, so you pays your money and you takes your choice.

I didn’t take the Airtrek off road either, but with its increased ground clearance and four-wheel drive it’s probably nearly as good as a Land Rover Freelander or a Honda CR-V, which means it’s almost certainly good enough. On the road, however, it’s amazing.

You sit there in that dull cabin looking down the boring nose, listening to the tedious engine note not quite believing how sharp the turn-in is and how much grip you get, wet or dry. Believe me, you could make your children very sick indeed in this car.

Don’t think, however, that it’s permanently hysterical and mad. When you’re not in the mood it’s quiet with a good ride and light steering. The only real downside is a smallish boot.

Despite all this, though, there’s no point buying one. If you want the absolute thrill of an Evo — and there is no better thriller on sale today — then buy one. It’s not like it’s a two-seater with no boot, it’s a four-door saloon for heaven’s sake.

However, if you want to sacrifice probably 30% of the Evo’s fun factor for more ground clearance and an estate car body there’s no need to go to all the bother of buying a car from Dudley, particularly if you live in Boston or Alnwick.

Because for over £2,000 less you can have a Subaru Forester S Turbo, which is officially imported and which, if anything, is slightly more practical and even more fun than the Mitsubishi Shoe. It is, after all, a five-door version of the legendary Impreza.

There was some speculation recently about what sort of car God might drive. We know from the East Anglia debacle that he makes mistakes but, even so, I think even he would consider the Land Rover a bit old. It’d be neat, from the story’s point of view, if I could wrap up now by saying he agonised long and hard over the choice of a Mitsubishi Airtrek and a Subaru Forester. But this would be silly because we all know God doesn’t drive a Japanese car.

He has a 1997 Aston Martin Vantage.

VITAL STATISTICS
Model Mitsubishi Airtrek Turbo-R
Engine type Four cylinders, turbo, 1997cc
Power 240bhp @ 5500rpm
Torque 253 lb ft @ 2500rpm
Transmission Five-speed automatic
Suspension (front and rear) MacPherson struts, lower wishbones, coil springs, anti-roll bar
Tyres 215/60 R16
Fuel 22.7mpg (combined)
Co2 238g/km
Dimensions 4465mm length; 1750mm width; 1540mm height
Acceleration 0 to 60mph: 6sec
Top speed 120mph
Insurance Group 17
Price £22,995
Verdict Dull inside, boring out, but the performance is shattering. Unfortunately the Subaru Forester is slightly more practical, even more fun, and more than £2,000 cheaper

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