Mazda RX-7

I remain unconvinced that a car can have character any more than a coffee table can, but I think I know what we’re talking about here. I’m probably as guilty of referring to cars as ‘characterful’ as the next person. If a car can have character traits, then ‘being boring’ is one, isn’t it? “What’s Prior like?” “Boring.” Hey – it’s my character. Live with it.

Anyway, I distinctly remember a drive I took in a Toyota Avensis, in about 1998, from London Colney to Watford, on a Friday night. It was the most relaxing, smoothest car journey I’d ever made up to that point. It was entirely memorable simply because of its tremendous forgettability.

But is a late-1990s Toyota Avensis bustling with character? Good God no. So by ‘character’, do we mean ‘massive flaws’? If that is the case, the Tata Safari is the most characterful car I’ve ever driven, simply because it was so appalling. But no, we probably don’t mean that either.

We mean something unusual, odd, perhaps worse than the norm, perhaps better, but either way so endearing and novel that we like it, right? The Mazda RX-8’S engine. The Ariel Nomad’s ride. The Chrysler PT Cruiser’s design and its funky pool-ball gearknob. The Aston Martin V12 Vantage S’s steering and handling. Absolutely everything about the BMW i3’s except its power delivery.

But it’s still a weird question. What’s the most characterful car I want from the past two decades? Frankly, I’ve no idea.

But the cars I have wanted most have included that V12 Vantage S, the Rolls-royce Phantom, the Honda NSX-R and the Alfa Romeo SZ. Chuck in the Holden Efijy and we could call it the world’s most characterful five-car garage.

Of course, I can’t afford to buy any of them, and if I tried, I could just about stretch to a late-1990s Mazda RX-7. So that’ll do.