In the Venn diagram of car owners whose vehicles have a certain amount of “character” and individuals who use Microsoft’s applications, there is an intersection of people who accept a quirk or two but not an unexpected explosion.

These individuals were recently celebrated in “On That Side Of Things,” a spin-off of the Smith and Sniff podcast in which Jonny Smith, a former presenter of the Fifth Gear UK television show, and Richard Porter, a writer for Top Gear and The Grand Tour, discuss cars and many other things.

Smith and Porter were answering a listener’s question about Microsoft products, which led Porter to express his frustration with some of the applications produced by the Windows behemoth, notably the online version of Excel, as well as Word’s habit of occasionally doing unexpected things with tables and styles.

Porter complained about difficulties when trying to insert lines in Excel. (Which, to be fair to Microsoft, is relatively straightforward – need to insert a row? Right-click on a selected row. Need to insert a line in text? Alt+Return is probably going to be your friend.) But then Porter turned to that other productivity stalwart, Word.

“Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to make things more complicated,” he said.

“It’s almost like having an Alfa Romeo … you just go ‘Oh, yeah, it always does that. I’m kind of used to it now. I accept it. It’s character, isn’t it?’

“Except it’s not ‘character’ in a piece of software. It’s just irritating.”

Porter went on to give an example, “My favorite thing in Word is when you go, ‘I’m just going to paste in something here, but I think we’ve already established that I’ve already written 3,000 words in Times New Roman 12-point. I’m just going to paste this little guy in here and… OH LOOK, YOU’VE CHANGED THE WHOLE F**KING THING TO WINGDINGS FOR NO APPARENT REASON.”

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“It’s infuriating.” Porter continued in a similar vein for some time (and there is likely a special slot reserved in the Bad Place for whoever came up with Word’s table implementation), but his experience raises an interesting question.

If Microsoft’s products were a car, what car would it be?

A classic Alfa can quickly be discounted, since the styling and driver engagement handily offset the vehicle’s habit of dissolving if looked at funny, or its ability to vomit its engine and gearbox contents abruptly onto the road. A humdrum family hatchback that is dull but gets the job done with tedious competence can also be dismissed.

So what is the automotive equivalent of Microsoft’s current output?

Sound off in comments and let us know.

(In the interests of full disclosure, this writer is a subscriber to the podcast and thinks you should subscribe to it too. The Register, of course, has no position when it comes to motoring in social media.) ®