Matt Prior

Spare a thought for the MPV, won't you? The multi purpose vehicle, as it was known, was a big, boxy thing sometimes described back in its heyday as a people carrier. As opposed to what I never knew: what is a car if not a vehicle for carrying people?

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Anyway, I use the word 'was' because while some still exist, most MPVs – like the Volkswagen Sharan, Ford Galaxy and a plethora of others - didn’t survive the past decade’s push towards posh; the move towards ‘lifestyle’.

An MPV suggested, I think, and if you will excuse my paraphrasing a mood of the times, that while its owners had been somewhat successful in the sack, they had somewhat given up on other areas of life, such as style or luxury. They had become the frame, not the picture, as parenthood is sometimes described, to the detriment of their own existence. An MPV's owners were so busy with baby buggies, runs to school, evening child-related activities involving cramming loads of stuff into a vehicle that there wasn’t any room for their own lives, personal leisure and pleasure: hiking, showing off, having a nice time in a nice-looking car and doing the lifestyley things that an SUV - a sport utility vehicle - was supposed to allow one to do.

The SUV - now more than half of all cars sold in the UK and still inexplicably rising - looks more rufty-tufty and classy and says more about its owner, whereas an MPV says more about its passengers.