The wild (city)rover

Owing to a car service that necessitated an overnight stay in the garage for our somewhat venerable Fiat Punto, I ended up with a Cityrover courtesy car. Cityrovers, for those not familiar with the marque, were built at Longbridge between 2003-2005 and, rather incongruously carry the Rover badge. Now, in my youth, Rovers were a beast of a car: John Thaw's Jack Regan drove one menacingly around London's badlands every week on the Sweeney and every hard-bitten (plus quite a few soft-boiled) 70s sales reps probably gave their eye-teeth to get behind the wheel of one. A Cityrover, by stark contrast, is a rattle-wagon with an under-powered rubberband engine and doors that give the adjective 'tinny' a bad name. In short, driving from home to Yeadon and back was a trial. The experience was made worse on arriving at work as, for reasons best know to the manufacturer, this car is fitted with an alarm and immobiliser of fearsome proportions - far in excess of the vehicle's worth - and which I managed to set off while trying to lock the damn thing. My humiliation was not quite complete, however. On leaving the office, and making the most of the non-powered steering to wrest the thing out of its parking bay, I was treated to a look of such superiority and contempt by the man behind the wheel of a sleek, brand new Merc (64 plate for UK readers) who was just pulling into the car park. Cityrover - experience the true feel of 1970s British auto engineering: coming soon to a scrapyard near you.