Times Five

Pointless isn’t always a bad thing: here are five cars we love because they have no reason to exist, writes Damien O’Carroll.

Mercedes-AMG G 63

It probably isn’t fair to single out the G 63 here, because it is the whole ‘‘performance SUV’’ segment that is utterly pointless – I mean, if you want a performance vehicle, surely one that isn’t massive, tall and heavy is a better bet?

But the G 63 takes all your silly criticisms of its spectacular lack of a point and turns them to a fine paste of outrage and environmental concerns beneath its ridiculously massive tyres as it accelerates violently towards a rose-tinted past where muscle cars are still relevant.

Brutally fast, blatantly aggressive and spectacularly pointless, the G 63 is still possibly the greatest car on the planet. Which it is helping to destroy.

Renault Avantime

The Renault Avantime was an MPV coupe. No, seriously, that’s how Renault described it. And it was literally the only vehicle in that segment ever.

Oddly, no-one saw the need for a coupe version of a vehicle designed for moving large amounts of people, much like noone has ever lamented that there isn’t a ‘‘sports bus’’ or ‘‘roadster van’’ (both would be awesome, though).

But its sheer, blatant pointlessness makes it something to lust after now – Renault only made around 8500 of them, which is only a surprise in the fact that there were actually THAT many people who wanted to buy one in the first place.

Mercedes-Benz R 63 AMG

Much in the same vein as the Avantime and the performance SUV, no-one ever really cried out for a ‘‘Performance MPV’’, yet our wonderfully single-minded friends at AMG forged ahead and gave us one anyway.

The R-class is a vehicle that Mercedes has admitted was a mistake in the first place, but doubling down on that mistake and jamming a 375kW 6.2-litre V8 under its bonnet created something so wonderfully pointless that it simply can’t be hated.

Although if you were the unfortunate family dog who had to sit in the back you probably would have hated it. Or the driver.

Suzuki X-90

You may have noticed a theme developing here – way more power than is sensible or coupe versions of cars that have no business being coupes.

You probably also have surmised that the Suzuki X-90 is most certainly in the latter category, because it definitely wasn’t overpowered. But then, it wasn’t really a coupe either.

A feeble 71kW 1.3-litre engine was all that powered the awkward targa-roofed (yep, really) small SUV coupe-ish, notchback-y thing that was, by all criteria a bad car.

But like an ugly puppy, we can’t help but love it. But then, we also love weird Japanese Kei cars, so that could just be us.

Abarth 695 Tributo Ferrari

We’re back in the ‘‘more power than is really sensible’’ category here, with the brilliantly mental baby Abarth.

The unbalanced genius of jamming WAY too much power into the cute Fiat 500 is deep within Abarth’s DNA, but the unhinged brilliance that led them to doing an even more powerful version of the standard 595 Esseesse – 132kW, which is more than three times the power of the entry Twin Air 500 – complete with Ferrari tweaks and price tag was broken genius at its best.

It was actually tweaked by Ferrari engineers, but was bought by misguided middle-aged suburbanites. They regretted that.