Fail of the century #32: Vauxhall Zafira VXR

Sometimes, the unlikeliest flavours pair together to produce surprisingly delicious results. Strawberries and balsamic vinegar. Pineapple on pizza. (Fail of the Century will hear no dissent against pineapple on pizza. It is one of the all time great flavour combinations, and anyone who cares to state otherwise is a culinary deviant.)

And the Zafira VXR was indeed an unlikely flavour pairing. Even by the unsporty standards of Noughties MPVs, the regular Zafira was about as unsporty as they come – an admirably practical, glamour-free receptacle for ferrying your bogey riddled, lice infested offspring around the suburbs. FOTC means this as a compliment.

VXR, on the other hand, was as thuggish as Noughties performance badges came: three letters that translated, energy wise, as ‘will happily smack you round the back of the head with a pool cue, just for bantz’. (Again, compliment.)

So what happened when Zafira and VXR were folded together, and baked into a seven-seat, 237bhp, turbocharged, front-wheel drive, torque-steering performance MPV? Glorious Hawaiian pizza, or an execrable chilli-chocolate soufflé? Fail of the Century feels that we all know the answer to that question. Still less offensive than chilli chocolate, mind.