Emissions/Kilian Doyle: This week's piece breaks from the tradition of being a baleful belch of bilious contempt. Rather, it's an appreciation, a celebration, a reminiscence.
It's in honour of the greatest achievement in motoring history - the Citroën DS. Launched on an unsuspecting and largely uncomprehending public in 1955, it was the most innovative, radical, serene and - most of all - beautiful car ever made.
It's no coincidence it was called the DS, which is pronounced in French as "déesse", meaning "goddess". For that is what she was. With front-wheel drive, hydraulic suspension, single-spoke steering wheel, disc brakes and frankly lascivious styling, she was a million miles ahead of the competition.
Admittedly beset with mechanical faults and idiosyncrasies at first, but all masterpieces are painted with the odd brushstroke of madness.
I saw one last week in Dublin. She was gliding through grimy Tuesday afternoon traffic like a swan through scrabbling coots on a canal. She was pale grey and gorgeous, beautifully preserved and turning every head she passed. It's difficult to describe exactly how I felt.
The DS was, after all, a mere lump of ageing metal and rubber and leather, chugging along through a mass of far shinier and fuel-efficient machines. But she moved me beyond words.
My father had a DS when I was a child. Big, bulbous and burgundy, she was - in my young mind - the epitome of cool. We lived in the drab centre of Brussels, a place devoid of any charm or life to a curious dreamer such as me. To climb into "the Beast" was to enter another world, one of fantasy and excitement.
It wasn't just the spaceship-like exterior that made her so otherworldly, it was the suspension too. My sister and I would perch on the lush purple velour sofa of a back seat, squealing away in happiness as she slowly rose up to full height, like a tiger stretching itself in the morning, in readiness to take on the world.
"Worst getaway car ever," my father would joke, again and again, obviously delighted with himself. He loved "the Beast" too. My mother says being driven around in the "regal" DS made her feel like a superstar. She'd even get mistaken occasionally for Audrey Hepburn.
We'd take off en famille at weekends, driving to Paris or Berlin or Amsterdam or other magical places, all singing our hearts out to the three Johnny Cash tapes we had. It's not that we only had those three tapes, it's just that his songs of freedom and adventure were exactly what the DS was all about. It just felt right.
But the fateful day came when the DS had to go. By then, my father had a Citroën CX Pallas, itself a divine example of the car designer's art. Despite being a terrifically stylish machine, it was a masculine creature that simply didn't have the salacious audacity of the DS curves. The CX was a Clint Eastwood to the DS's Brigitte Bardot. But she went, my father assured his whimpering children, to a good home.
I didn't see her again for years - until one dreary night in the late 1980s when I was walking with some mates up to a concert in the SFX in Dublin's north inner city. It was a pretty bleak area then, and the filthy rain didn't help.
Suddenly I saw her, parked incongruously outside some dilapidated Georgian pile. She reminded me of Sophia Loren - a bit faded and saggy round the seams in her old age but still so proud and beautiful that all else paled into insignificance beneath her.
I nearly burst into tears. Instead I burst - almost unconsciously - into the chorus of One Piece At A Time by the wonderful Mr Cash.
"Jesus, Doyle, will you come on?" they said, eyes rolling. "It's only a car." They couldn't have been further from the truth.