First service this week for my Elise R, at Stratstone in Leicester - more of which later.

Anyway, they had arranged a courtesy car for me and on the basis that the Lotus dealer is part of Evans Halshaw, I envisaged a Focus or a Fiesta or even a new Ka.........But no.

Seems Stratstone used to be a Chrysler dealer until last year and what they had for me was.....a Dodge Avenger!!!! I had never heard of the Avenger (other than the Hillman variety). My guess is that they never actually sold any of these devices and perhaps the only two ever imported were now seeing service as courtesy cars in Leicester. I had the a black one and apparently there is a silver one as well.

So my road test of the Dodge Avenger...

Good points - its very big, has loads of kit and from the website seems to be pretty cheap to buy. The SXT diesel manual I tried has some sort of VW TDI engine and has masses of torque. It also got the thumbs up from my 14 year old son (it looks a bit like a Charger in the dark) and my 18 year old daughter's mates who thought it looked "sick". Oh and the heated seats are manic!

Bad points - everything else. Cheap nasty hard plastic everywhere, handles like a rowing boat. Why would anyone want to buy one?

Still it did the job for a day and a half while the Lotus was being fettled.....