A hush settles over the courtroom as the presiding judge gives an almost imperceptible nod to the counsel for the defence. The venerable barrister stands and adjusts his robes. Beneath them, a once youthful body is turning slowly to corpulence - a result of too strong a taste for good food and better wine - but here, on the floor of the court, he feels young and virile again and up for the fight. This defendant is not so defenceless...
"M'lud, ladies and gentlemen of the jury and assembled members of the public. You have heard the case laid out by the prosecution, a case that seems on the face of it damning to my client. Many of you will already be thinking; this poor client is for the stockades, or down to a cell from whence the key will be thrown away. None more guilty, you may be thinking now and thanks to the talents of m'learned colleague, I would not be surprised.
"Yet, let us consider the cold, hard facts. Facts are immutable. They are unmoving. They are the rocks upon which we build belief, trust and safety. You may have an opinion, it's true. I too may hold one and one is as valid as the next. But facts, facts are what we must deal with today."
The great legal orator was just warming up. He turned and glanced at his client, sitting impassive in the dock robed in beige.
"Mr Corolla sits before you accused of the crime of being a dull and uninteresting car. Accused of not providing enough fun for those sat behind his wheel, accused of the venal crime of lassitude. It is a serious offence, one that carries great opprobrium, both for Mr Corolla and for all those who do business with him and his various associates."
At this, high up in the public gallery, onlookers with names like Avensis, Auris and Yaris shifted uncomfortably, aware that it could be any one of them sitting in Corolla's place. Only the GT86, striking in bright red amongst the regulations greys, blacks and blues, sat impassively, unworried.
The barrister continued. "Uninteresting, indeed? How precisely has the counsel for the prosecution defined this? He has not, I would aver. He has merely sought to damn and curse Mr Corolla with the merest whiff of circumstantial evidence. M'learned colleague seems pleased and satisfied to accuse Mr Corolla of being boring simply because it has always been said thus. It has clearly escaped the prosecution's memory that Mr Corolla was heavily involved, over the years, in rallying and other forms of motor sport. Are we to regard these as boring?
"Are we also to regard as dull and dish-water-y such things as reliability, affordability, spaciousness and simplicity of operation? Perhaps if an acquaintance of yours or mine were to refer to us as 'reliable' it may smack of damning with faint praise, but I for one would value such as a compliment.
"Worse still, there are those in the media," and at this the barrister glowered with all his ocular might at the corner of the court reserved for the press, "who bandy about such words as 'beige' and 'an appliance' when discussing Mr Corolla's efforts. For them perhaps the sheer shame of their profession is punishment enough and we shall not deal with them again here.
"Returning to the matter at hand, however, I would say to you, members of the jury, a dozen good men and women, fair and true, that Mr Corolla is not at all beige, dull nor boring, but has simply become labelled so by years of populist discussion. A fine, thoroughbred dog, given a heinous name. I would suggest to you that Mr Corolla is no more or less entertaining to drive than at least 90 or even 95 per cent of his peers, and that many of those self-same peers will have succumbed to the malice of breakdowns or major component failure at a time when Mr Corolla is still working hard and providing his esteemed services.
"It is thus my conviction, as I hope it shall soon be yours, that Mr Corolla is utterly and completely guilty..." A dramatic pause hangs in the air. "...of nothing more than being damned good at what he does and that the prosecution's case is made of a mere tissue of hearsay and innuendo and I would move that you, jointly or separately, can have no other option today than to find him innocent of the crime of boredom."
The barrister moved, as if to return to his seat, but with a final theatrical flourish, appeared to think better of it and turned to face the jury one last time. If it were physically possible to look 12 people directly in the eye all at once, that it was he now did. "Besides, Mr Corolla has found 40 million happy and grateful clients down through the years and if there were any serious call for him to be in the dock today, then all of them would have to be standing here alongside him. I thank you for your time and attention, ladies and gentlemen of the jury."
With that, the greatest legal brain of his time turned on his practiced heel and returned to his bench. Mr Corolla looked nervously across to him, but the barrister gave Corolla the faintest of winks and a tiny shift of the facial muscles that was meant to reassure. No jury could possibly convict, they seemed to say.