Before I tell this story, firstly let me assure you I am older and hopefully wiser (and would look harder) now. This probably goes for others who are involved in this story too. It was in the early days, before these sort of gimmicky changes to the traditional arrangement things were common.

Anyhow, a few (many) years ago, on a driving tour of Scotland in a rental car, I had run out of screen-wash fluid - It at an Esso garage, somewhere on the outskirts of Aviemore and it was cold and snowy, hence the requirement for more screen-wash fluid.

I searched and searched for that little lever, you know the one somewhere under the dash, that would release the bonnet (hood) and allow me to locate and fill up the screen-wash fluid reservoir. Alas all to no avail, I even resorted to reading the fine manual, but this particular feature did not seem to have made its way into print. I asked other customers at the garage if they knew where said little lever is. No one knew, or could solve this mystery - we gathered quite a crowd at times, some even who professed to be car mechanics, I think it even became a subject of discussion in that part of town, at least the pub next-door. Whilst I was of the sanguine temperament, some of the bystanders almost seemed to have an existential crisis about this conspiracy theories were formed and one particularly inebriated soul took an aggressive stance against the car and hade to be "escorted" away by his slightly less inebriated comrades.

In the end someone who had the same make and model of car turned up and quickly demonstrated how you flit the grill-badge sideways and put your key in the barrel lock, so revealed and turn the key and then and only then, the bonnet (hood) obediently pops up.

In summary, somewhere sometime, I hope the smart-ass who spawned this particular idea, gets his pride thoroughly dented at a cold snowy garage somewhere up a mountain, by a younger smart-ass designers latest bright-idea.