LOOK past the outrageous front-end and you’ll find the familiar Mitsubishi Verada/Magna you’ve known and loved for more than seven years. The Verada was always a good car, and remains so, even if in many ways it’s facing fresher and more eager competition from both locally designed and Japanese-based product. The Xi version is the flagship model, intended to strike a blow at the likes of Fairmont Ghia and Holden Calais and it’s well-enough equipped to do just that, with just about every bell and whistle imaginable short of satellite-navigation. Two things weigh against it: its basic familiarity, and a radical frontal aspect that appears to alienate more people than it attracts.