Mitsuoka news - You little Viewt - 2009

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If you're an ardent fan of Top Gear telly - or just unable to receive any other channel but Dave on your Freeview box - you'll remember James driving a massive sumo bloke around Japan in the bizarre Mitsuoka Galue a couple of series back.

As well as the Rolls-aping Galue and that fabulously disgusting Orochi sort-of-supercar, Mitsuoka also builds a Jaguar Mark 2 almost-replica... based on the Nissan Micra.

No, really. It's called the Viewt and this is the all-new version, due to debut in Tokyo this week.

Mitsuoka has been building the Viewt on the Micra platform since 1993, 16 years in which exactly no people have been fooled into thinking it was actually a classic British car rather than a painful city car knock-off.

But for some reason, we rather like this, the third-generation Viewt. It's certainly not the engine choices that are doing it: you get the choice of a 1.2-, 1.4- or 1.5-litre petrol engine, putting out between 90bhp and 109bhp.

And it's not the interior. Apart from the steering wheel badge, Mitsuoka appears to have left the Micra's cabin utterly unchanged: not even a whiff of faux walnut or leather-effect PVC. Disappointing.

But still, we want one. Not even sure why, but we do. In a sort of off-beige, ideally. Anyone else similarly tempted?