The Avantime is, indeed, a gorgeous car. I wish I could have afforded one at the time. Now, I can't justify it. I've seen a few of them, but not recently - I suspect they're suffering from the usual French bit-rot.

Oh, that's epic. Such a fine vision, and yet so flawed.

For tomorrow, you *have* to include the 1955 M-B "Blue Wonder", itself capable of a hefty 100mph...

Don't call it a Maxi - too many bad memories of worse cars...

Not available as a Manual at all. For shame, VW, for shame!

So sorry for your loss. I know the feeling - we had to put our mutt down in October 2012, due to aggressive bone cancer in the leg. She went downhill fast in the last few weeks - too fast for any accurate targeted treatment to be *started* let alone effective. It's a hard decision to make. I still get a bit…

It keeps getting better. :-)

• Brown: Check

Allegro na mon troppo.

I think Jalopnik has answered this question already... Skid Parking.

Who can forget the glory days of the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984, where both Rover and Yugo scored a perfect 10 in the semifinals?

Arctic trucks do a nice line in 6x6 Hiluxes... Given the weather at the moment, I suspect that many could find a place in their hearts for one of these. Shame about the price tag.

Ding, ding ding

It looks to be a Foden logo on the front...

Not just me, then, who watched this and thought "needs more Kurgan"...

I saw the likeliness with the CX immediately

Two things I remember from driving one of these beasts in the dim & distant past:

Scottish Parliament overran by millions - yup. By well over £350M on a project originally estimated at well under £50M. There's a summary of the project overruns and excuses at Wikipedia (not that you should use Wikipedia as a primary source, but what the hell...)

Skoda used to be a joke. Then VW took them over, and they've been going great guns ever since. I've owned a 2004-vintage Fabia Estate (wagon to you US-niks) for three years, and routinely get well over 55mpg on the run to the office (370 mile round trip), or 40+mpg if I'm working from home, doing the school run. My…

I know the Transit Supervan has already been mentioned, but it's hardly got the most subtle paintwork. I reckon the biggest sleeper has to be the Transit/XJ220 hybrid - Ford Transit body with the running gear of the Jaaaaag XJ220.