I'm not trying to be provocative, but when I look at that profile, a short wheelbase with massive overhang front and rear, I can't do anything than conclude that this car is shit.

Harrier. Aka Hawker Harrier. Hawker, of Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest, Fury and Sea Fury fame. Not a bad list.

So how did the different brands compare? I'm running Yokohama iceGuard and they perform just fine here for me. Albeit in conditions of a lot more (fresh) snow and a lot less cold.

All true. I know there are heaps of solutions available, but you still end up having to re-engineer the thing to get to where it should have been in the first place. Minis were and are heaps of fun to drive, I don't dispute that. As toys they are fine, but as sole transport they were woefully lacking, especially for…

I owned a succession of Minis through the 1970s. I was always hard up, so I was bottom feeding with cheapies. I only had two electrical problems in those 10+ years. One was a broken brush in a dynamo, and the other a failed condenser. Both were trivial to diagnose and fix.

JCB started post WWII as blacksmith/engineers making and fitting backhoes to tractors. They bootstrapped themselves into an international oganisation building the whole kit and kaboodle.

Err... Because stuff is inside, out of the weather rather than outside getting pissed on. My wife runs a patissiery. She and I deliver cakes in cardboard boxes. You may like your cake wet with cardboard, but most of our customers don't.

It will have seen plenty of snow around Appi, or Tohoku for that matter, but we get so much snow that salting doesn't really work. The only way to keep the roads open is to plough. The authorities do use some salt, but only a limited amount.

Nexco is the organisation which operates the Expressway system in Japan (or at least the part where I live). Those are traffic police in the background. A different shade of blue.

I used to drive one of these for work (geology, Australia), except it had a standard cab. The 2.8 litre diesel was a significantly better performer than the earlier (2.2/2.4?), but it was rough. It also had a 120 litre fuel tank, which gave it a huge range.

It looks normal to me, but I live in Japan and I'm used to smoothly surfaced roads with fresh markings. It looks like somewhere on the Tokyo metropolitan expressway system, but it could be any major city. TokyoBayLine should be along anytime soon to tell exactly where the photo was taken.

The London system is actually two systems. The Tube comprises deep tunnels bored underground. The Underground is shallow and was excavated from above then roofed over. It is actually open to the air in many places. I'm guessing the steam trains operated on the underground system rather than the Tube. Still doesn't…

Another one you'd never get: Wymondham. It's in Norfolk, pronounced "windam".

I misread the badge on the back of a Toyota Estima Emina as Estima Enema once. Mirthiness prevailed.

Thanks Kat

OK. Thanks for that, I stand corrected.

No cocaine here. Have you ever seen claims that grey imports don't meet US safety standards? One of those standards is for the airbags. The three countries I've lived in, UK, Oz and Japan all make it compulsory to wear seatbelts. I don't believe thats the case in the US. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

CP. It may have been imported from Japan, but was a grey import here. A big difference between Japan and The Land of The Free is that in Japan you can import stuff and licence it. In The Land of The Free I'd be worried that the Feds would confiscate and destroy it.

They do have passenger airbags. In my wife's Nissan Otti, its in the top rather than the face of the dash. Non-US airbags are smaller and less aggressive than US air bags because they are designed to work "in conjunction with", rather than "instead of" seatbelts.

No-one seems concerned. In Japan (at least the parts that I know), there is almost no litter, almost no graffiti, and just about everyone cleans up after their dogs. The only dirt in the snow is road-dirt and black carbon. There's not much anyone can do about that and it all ends up in the rivers after rain anyway.