Bruce the Ute is still hounded by everyone in the office. However, Our Ignition Metallic beast, head-turner of note and sports car par excellence, is slowly drifting away from its bakkie image.

Bakkie? Are you off your mind? This is no bakkie but a 'hot-shot-hot' sports car. And, no, I have not yet let it rip on the highway to test its top speed, suffice to say it's in the order of 250km/h.

But I've tested most other parameters and the results were enough for me to check them again. Any bakkie that can flatten the zero to 100km/h in 6.4 seconds on the Reef, storm to the end of the ¼-mile in 15 seconds and exit at 159km/h has no right to be called a 'bakkie'. And yes, the single apostrophes are there to denote the degrading nature of such a name for our Ignition Metallic brute.

And that 'Toy for the Big Boy' slogan does sound right but carries with it overtones of the typical 'widget', boykie, oke or ou who mostly drive Lumina Utes. In fact they’re the ones who discovered its hidden talents and when driving it around many think of you as one too.

So where am I going with this tirade of typical South African speak? Well, to be sure, it’s due to the rumour circulating the office that our Ute should for all intents and purposes be considered as one of our Performance Car of the Year nominations with its sparkling performance, great looks and the rest we've laboured on and raved about since it entered our parking lot as a long-termer.

What’s more, we feel that a car, yes a car, of this calibre and price should be introduced to the more discerning buyers out there in the market chasing all kinds of sophisticated and more expensive pieces of machinery without even the slightest thought of the Ute. Parking the one next to your wife’s Porsche would be quite the thing in Hyde Park or Sandown.

What you truly need to know is you’re not buying what was at one time deridingly called a Yank Tank. It’s proved itself as a star on the twisty stuff and while cruising the boulevards.

In the same ballpark are big names: Audi S4, Audi S6, BMW 540i, BMW 645i, BMW Z4 3.0Si, Jaguar S-Type R, Merc CLS 500, Merc SLK 350 and more. And the good news is it’ll set you back R359 000 and set you apart and complimented as one who really knows their oats.