I had quite a lot to drink this Saturday night. I was taking part in an annual Wassailing festival, drinking plenty of warm mulled cider and singing incantations to any apple trees within earshot who happened to be listening, with the dual aims of increasing this year’s fruit harvest through spiritual means, that and getting royally slizzard.
I can report considerable success in the latter (I’ll keep you posted on how the apples turn out), and the late phases of the evening saw the whole group of us grinning our way through the program of music and dancing, until our conscious mindsets were quite a long way removed from reality. It was as I was headed towards this higher state of being that I found myself out in the car park and confronted by a piece of car that I genuinely didn’t recognise. I actually began to panic. I’m usually so completely immersed in the world of cars that I can identify pretty much everything at all likely to be found on the road with my eyes closed, my nose blocked and my ears taped shut. Yet here I was looking at a section of sheet metal that, as far as I was concerned could have come from outer space.
I was losing it. My brain had turned to mush. I don’t do drugs (er, aside from alcohol and caffeine) but I was quite clearly tripping.

Pause. Deep breath.
I grabbed the above photo as a means of restoring cognitive balance the next morning. I would not let my own mind defeat me; one day I would find the answer. At that moment, though, there were so people milling around and other obstructions that I couldn’t see any other visual clues as to what the hell this thing was. All I could do, using the extremely addled mental processing power I could muster that night, was to analyse elements of the DNA of that three foot square section that might apply to brands and models that I was familiar with.
It’s not exactly a wild piece of engineering. There’s nothing that shows any particular radical engineering or transcendent design thought, but it is undeniably neat. The shut lines are tight and consistent,  those for where the rear bumper fits being especially impressive. Quality, I would say, was high.
There was one thing about the whole assembly of lines which particularly struck me. Look at the treatment of the door shut line and how it runs perfectly parallel to the rear light cluster and the rear bumper. This gives a really cohesive appearance yet, despite this, is seen on a relatively few five-door cars. I first noticed it on the MK5 VW Golf, where it lent the car a suggestion of strength and integrity.

In truth, even the door handles looked a bit like VW ones, so perhaps I was looking at some kind of VAG product? I referenced my internal databanks, at quite less than even dial-up speed and with a cognitive resolution way below CGA standard; the fuzzy images that popped up still didn’t quite match what was in front of me. It’s definitely not an Audi, nor a Skoda, I’m pretty sure it’s not a VW, that window frame just doesn’t speak of anything that could come from Wolsburg…. then I thought I had my Eureka moment.
I could see a section of one of the rear lights, and the way the lens colours were distributed made me think SEAT. The cluster on this car had a three dimensional form to it, you’re not just looking at it side on but also slightly down on it, there’s a section of the lamp surface which runs almost horizontal, becoming part of a vestigial rear deck area. It’s pretty neat, and, in fact, from what I could see in the gloomy, flickeringly lit shadows of the car park when the crowds moved around, the rear screen of the car was quite severely raked, not upright like a Golf, more like on the old SEAT Leon.
This was great news. I was beginning to question my sanity less, and felt a swelling relief that the signs were that I hadn’t done my brain any lasting damage through over consumption of mulled cider, Hobgoblin, Maldon Gold and Bingle Jells. All would be well. It was a SEAT, albeit one that I hadn’t seen before. No great loss. I’d see one again soon enough. I could move on. Recognition failure of a SEAT is nothing to panic about.
And then the crowds parted. The Morris Dancers had conceded defeat to frostbite and the Essex tundra had reached so far below zero that the bonfire flames had turned to frozen glowing orange fingers. The SEAT was left exposed, before I went inside to thaw out I would have another squint at it to enrich my education. I drew closer… and was suddenly struck by a violent fist of truth.

It’s a New KIA Rio. It’s a bloody KIA Rio. How the hell did that happen? Despite my heroic imbibement I was sober enough to recall that a KIA Rio was, historically, one of the most wretched motor vehicles ever to have offered “transport” to the unwary. A miserable appliance which stretched the definition of “car” to its very most elastic limits. In its first incarnation the Rio was bad enough to put a non-motorist off cars for life; its replacement with the same name was a huge improvement yet still looked gormless and had an interior which made you feel as if you were sealed for life inside a counterfeit Tupperware box. Yet here I am, today, and the car with KIA Rio emblazoned on its rump is a contemporary, relevant, neat looking car. Yet perhaps I should read something into the fact that these have been on British roads for a good few years and it’s not been until tonight’s revelry that I’ve noticed one.
Though relieved that my brainfart wasn’t a sign of impending binge-fuelled mental breakdown, I was still shocked that such developments had passed me by. When I came back inside my friends asked me if I was OK; I seemed quiet and detached. I told them something about being cold, and the night went on.
 (First image by Chris Haining/Hooniverse 2015, middle one from netcarshow, bottom from Motor Trend. No permission sought, if you’re cross then put your hand up and I’ll take them down)