As with the MI6 building on the River Thames in London, made famous in the Bond movie 'The World is Not Enough', it can take a while for aesthetically challenging landmarks to work their way into your affections.
That's why I left it a while to write about the new Subaru Impreza...
When it was launched in late 2007 I was in a state of bewildered shock that anyone could build a car so grim. I mean, cars take months to design.
The drawings are presumably inspected by dozens of people at all levels of the company throughout the process. Just what did the various Subaru employees say when they saw proposals for the new Impreza?
Were they overcome by the same polite instinct that people have when presented with a gruesome newborn babe that looks like a cross between Buster Bloodvessel and a sea cucumber? Or is there someone so high up, perhaps the designer or a Subaru chief, who has such a fearsome reputation for corporate slaughter that nobody dares say what they really think?
("Shh," the brand manager whispered as a a team inspected the scale model, "don't you remember what happened to Udigawa-san when he complained about the lack of power in the automatic jet-wash toilets?" While making a slicing action across his throat.)
So I was waiting and hoping that the Prezza would grow on me, as some cars do - the Jaguar XJS, for instance (mind you, that did take 20 years). But it hasn't, really.
Driving it helped - it's a lovely, darty, agile thing, just as an Impreza should be - but the interior is still truly nasty with sub-Honda garden furniture-type plastics. Yet this new model is a much more supple and insulated drive and not as highly strung as performance Scoobies of the past.
And, though the fearful aesthetics are not such a worry when you're actually in the thing, you can't help but sympathise with the poor blighters who have to watch as it goes past.
The 225kW STi is at least a little more dramatic, with its blistered wheel arches and jutting rear spoiler, but I tried the WRX that just looks earnest and dumpy - like a supermarket own-brand version of a BMW 1-Series.
I imagine when they designed the Impreza they were aiming it more at the Ford Focus than at the old sports estate version.
They should have aimed more at the bin. - The Independent, London