Beautiful cars are few and far between these days. Take BMW. Brilliant vehicles on nearly every level but I’m not sure even the M5 of M6 truly take my breath away. I’m prepared to haggle over the Z4.

The latest Audi TT looks dull, the current Porsche 911 isn’t as mouthwatering as the previous 997 and Ford has cunningly borrowed the nose off an Aston Martin in an attempt to make the Mondeo interesting. Fat chance.

And so we arrive at the Nissan X-Trail. Yes, it does look like a BMW X3 from some angles and the funky rust colour of our test car is better in the metal than it looks in our photos. But will you really get a buzz seeing it parked on your driveway every morning?

Somehow I doubt it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but surely there’s a car designer out there somewhere (please God!) who can make an SUV look appealing? Having seen the new Bentley Bentayga, perhaps not…