Fail of the century #12: Nissan Pulsar

Here at Top Gear, we consider ourselves eagle-eyed observers of Britain’s roads, able to spot, say, a pre-spoiler MkI Audi TT at a thousand paces. Yet, weirdly, no one at Top Gear can ever recall having seen a Nissan Pulsar in the wild. This seems statistically improbable, as there are apparently 21,000 Pulsars on British roads today. But still, to the best of our collective recollection, no, nada, nothing, not a sausage.

Of course, it is quite possible we all pass many Nissan Pulsars (Pulsum?) on a daily basis, but entirely fail to clock them. Because that was the problem with the Pulsar, which went on sale in 2014 to great fanfare (OK, medium fanfare) before being quietly withdrawn from the UK market four years later. It was beyond bland. Boring. Duller than the All-Dullingham Dullest Ditchwater of the Year contest. Forgettable in every way.

But hey, what exactly is wrong with forgettable? Forgettable’s fine, right? No. Forgettable is not fine. It’s like... squirrels. The grey squirrel didn’t achieve its position as market leader in Britain’s competitive ‘woodland squirrel sector’ by being a meeker, more forgettable alternative to the red squirrel. No, the grey squirrel decimated Britain’s red squirrel population by, OK, we’re not exactly sure how, but presumably... by eating them all or something? Point is, it’s a squirrel-eat-squirrel world out there, and the Pulsar got ate.