Probably not something my late father would want me to admit to but he was surely the first person in our town to own an orange car. A very vivid, orange Datsun that turned heads for all the wrong reasons.

And when I passed my test at 17, I ended up buying it from him and using the orange-mobile to get to college. It was very economical, had a radio-cassette (classy) and was probably the perfect car for a young driver.

Except I wanted something that turned heads for the right reason and swapped it for a rust bucket Alfa Romeo in red, naturally. I mention this story because Kia has somehow managed to  make orange cool again with our Sportage.

I know Clarkson had a rant recently about the ‘boring car colours’ offered by car manufacturers these days. The Kia SUV bucks that trend and might even persuade you to think orange again too.