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The interior iswell made and equipped, sure. But, compared to Subarus ofthe past, a 1974Hillman Avenger would look greatand, no matter how improved the quality of materials may be, you have to ask yourselfwhy it was felt that fully grown adults would want a car that looked like a spaceship inside. The Honda Civic suffers from the samekind of “Buck Rogers” approach to both its interior and exterior design. Just how infantile do car designers think we are? Infantile enough to buy ChryslerPT Cruisers by their thousands, I suppose, butat least thad an American Graffiti charm. The B9 is more Japanese graffiti - both an eyesore and incomprehensible.

The automatic gearbox is too hasty to kick down which, to me, often suggests a lack of confidence in a car’s engine on the part of its maker. And you have no choice, as there is no manual option. This hardly improves the B9’s most un-Subaru-like acceleration but, if you are hoping that nugatory performance means it is easier on the environment, you’d be wrong: there is no diesel option either, so you have to make do with the petrol version. That has an average fuel consumption of 23mpg, which ought to ensure the B9 goes straight to the top of the SUV hate lists.

This is the kind of car that, a decade or so from now, when we are wading knee-deep in melted ice as we attempt to clear our inner cities of disorientated penguins, will mean we look back on the rise of the SUV as a crazed 2007 abhorrence that we would all much rather forget, like the England cricket team or Jade Goody.

The B9 was originally intended to be a Saab. It is the Swedish company’s great fortune that GM’s parlous financial state meant that never happened, but equally a shame that another noble brand has been forced to pick up the unedifying pieces of this project.