What is the South Korean fascination with grey - or grey plastic to be more precise? The point is relevant to anyone with even a passing interest in cars, given that South Korea is the world's fifth largest car producing country and that two of its indigenous marques, Hyundai and wholly owned Kia subsidiary, are setting their combined sights on being in the world's top five car firms by 2010.
Like it or not, our roads will see lots more Korean cars in the near future, and the sooner we face up to the grey plastic menace, the better for all concerned. Our attention was drawn to the problem after a week in Kia's barnstorming Sorento. Yes, it's yet another SUV, but this is a more practical entrant from Korea, coming with a proper four-wheel-drive system.
The Sorento has been around since the start of 2003, but for its first year here it was caught up in Kia's restructuring of Irish operations. As Kia in Britain prepared to take control in Ireland from the local importer, delivery hiccups late in 2003 didn't do much for its end-of-year sales figures.
All that is behind them now. Kia is on the rise - admittedly from a very low base - and the Sorento has begun to make in-roads in the SUV market.
Anecdotal evidence, from phone calls and letters to our Helpdesk, suggests it's proving particularly popular with motorists in areas where they actually value the likes of a low-ratio gearbox. While 32 per cent of sales last year were still registered in Dublin, those with more than landscaped gardens and rockeries to look after have been won over by its bulk, off-road credentials and, above all, its price.
Starting at €38,995, it's not cheap. Certainly not when compared with the likes of the Hyundai Santa Fe or the Suzuki Grand Vitara. Yet it seems more of a traditional off-roader than either of these.
It's positioning would seem to be between the soft-road and fully-fledged SUV camp, a patch dominated by the Toyota Land Cruiser, the Land Rover Discovery and the Mitsubishi Pajero. In that sort of company, it comes across as a good value deal.
The reason we'd even contemplate putting it in such illustrious company as the Land Cruiser is that, having spent time roughing up some soggy countryside, it instilled the sort of confidence you rarely find in urbanised SUVs. We'd still prefer one of the larger 4x4s if we found ourselves in a spot of bother, but the Sorento is no slouch in the mud and dirt. There's a simple four-wheel-drive system, operated by flicking a switch and offering automatic, full four-wheel-drive and even a low gear ratio setting.
Suspension is supple enough to take even the most rutted track in its stride.
Of course, there's a price to be paid for the off-road anaesthetic. And it's collected on the roads. Both steering and handling are rather numb when it's mixing with the masses. That's not to say it's a difficult beast to control. It's as tame as the rest and then some.
The Sorento here is powered by a 2.5-litre four-cylinder diesel, offering 138bhp. While larger than most similarly priced competitors, it packs extra grunt in terms of torque, if not in overall performance. Again it's better suited to pulling the two tonne body out of a rut than powering along an autobahn.
It also has a distinct diesel cough on cold mornings. In last week's cold snap it sounded distinctly unhappy to be asked to kick into life. Once, warmed up, however, it's relatively discreet and, with the automatic gearbox in the test car, it settled ddown nicely once into its rhythm at 2,000-3,000rpm.
Our test car was the top-of-the-range GSE model, priced over €45,000. For that you get heated leather seats and all the paraphernalia. But it all seemed rather out of place, like a hard-working farmhand in his Sunday best. What's more, both plastics and leather came in varying shades of grey . . . the same grey used by Hyundai.
The seats reminded us of a nasty pair of slip-on shoes we once owned in the 1980s, the sort of memory we've tried to blot out of our mind.
Even at its relatively good value price, it doesn't match the Discovery or the Land Cruiser in terms of saloon car feel inside the cabin.
Mainstream car makers aiming at price conscious motorists rarely get it right when they try to do luxury trim, while maintaining the price advantage.
The Sorento would, however, match the big players on build quality. There's no doubting its finish in this regard. Everything is well bolted together and build quality is to be praised.
It also looks sharper than many competitors, thanks in part to its stature. Some have compared its look to the Lexus RX - we can't see it, but it has a cleaner front nose than the Santa Fe and looks more like a proper SUV than the Nissan X-Trail or the Toyota Rav4.
If further proof were needed, the Sorento is one of Kia's big sellers in the US - hence the ads with Andre Agassi hopping over sand dunes and riding along cliff faces. Whether the word of an ageing tennis star desperately trying to fight the sands of time would impact upon your buying decisions for anything other than a pair of runners is another matter.
Kia recently unveiled its latest global slogan: "The power to surprise". The Sorento did just that with its off-road ability. It's a good package and reasonably priced.
But this addiction to grey plastic must be nipped in the bud. Down with that sort of thing.