So I had the Ridgeline on my mind, which is why I’ve decided to devote today’s “Feature Fail” column to one of the most unusual features currently available: the Honda Ridgeline camper top.

What is the Honda Ridgeline camper top, you ask? Why, it’s a camper top for a Honda Ridgeline.

And that, in itself, is rather ridiculous. The Ridgeline, for those who are (blissfully, believe me) unaware, is a rather odd-looking pickup truck that uses the running gear from a Honda Pilot, the engine from a Honda Pilot, the transmission from a Honda Pilot, and the platform of a Honda Pilot. In fact, the only way it differs from a Pilot is that it’s open in the back, like a truck, rather than enclosed, like an SUV.

So then why would you pay actual money to close up the back?

Every time I see a Ridgeline with a camper top, which admittedly is not very often, I always wonder about this. You chose the most SUV-like pickup in the world. Then you decided to turn it into an SUV. Why didn’t you just buy an SUV?!

This question is even more confounding when you bring cost into the equation. The Ridgeline and Pilot have the same starting price, meaning you’ve paid strong money to get that truck. Then you’ve paid even more to enclose it!

I don’t understand it, but perhaps you can shed some light. Until then, the Ridgeline camper shell is a feature fail.

I believe there are two major reasons why running boards are a “feature fail,” and I’ll cover them both. They are:

1. They’re really ugly. I don’t mean slightly ugly, like the BMW 5-Series GT, or even very ugly, like those steel wheels they used on the original Honda CR-V. I mean truly, insanely, unattractive.

When I bought my SUV, I specifically ordered it without running boards for this reason. Of course, I bought used, so when I say I “ordered it,” what I really mean is that I went to CarMax and said I wanted a vehicle that hasn’t even been in the same room as one with running boards.

Now, you’re thinking: Yes, they’re ugly. But they serve a purpose! And so we move on to…

2. They serve no purpose. Here’s what I’ve discovered about running boards. They would be very useful in some taller vehicles if they stuck out about a foot or two from the body, like actual stairs. But obviously they can’t, because this would make the vehicle way too wide for normal roads. So instead they stick out maybe two inches, which is nowhere near wide enough for a human being to put a foot on.

As a result, they have never actually been used, except on old cars from the early 1900s where the width of your running board was an expression of wealth, much in the same way that a window-mounted oval sticker is today.

The lone exception to this is those power-operated running boards on the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition. They come out far enough, and they stow when the vehicle is moving so you can’t see them. They aren’t a feature fail. The rest of the running board industry very much is.

It also sounds like a Ferrari. Even with the stock exhaust, jamming the throttle on the California unleashes exactly the sound you want from Italy’s finest. This seems counterintuitive considering the California is a front-engined four-seater, but it’s true. For proof, just ask a California driver to rev the engine at a traffic light, presuming you can get her to stop applying makeup.

And then there’s the styling. You’ll note I didn’t say I love the California.

I don’t mind the styling too much, save for the rear end. It’s way to big and it’s separated into levels as if it were a condo complex. But the worst part is by far the brake lights.

You see, Ferrari designed the car with the idea of making brake lights out of the circles. But somewhere along the way, Ferrari North America reminded them that brake lights, by federal law, cannot be on a movable body part. Since the circles are mounted on the rear decklid, they wouldn’t work.

This sent Ferrari scrambling back to the drawing board, which was probably an actual drawing board, where they came up with the idea you see in the attached photo. Yes, that’s right: the circles don’t light up. Instead, the tiny little lights right above the exhaust light up. They’re not LED, their brightness varies widely (in the photo, the left one is brighter) and because they’re not the circles, people always think the California’s brake lights are out.

They’re not. It’s just bad design on an otherwise likeable – and not lovable – car.

-@DougDeMuro

Examples, therefore, are easy to find. But no example is as egregious as power windows on the Dodge Neon and Jeep Liberty.

The Neon is the best of the two. In order to make the car as cheap as possible – which would then become even cheaper with legendary incentives – Chrysler didn’t offer power rear windows on the Neon. But here’s the ridiculous bit: it did offer power front windows. So no matter how much money you spent on a Neon (including the high-performance Neon SRT-4), there was absolutely no way to get your rear windows to roll down with anything other than a manual crank.

With the 2002 Liberty, Jeep realized it couldn’t get away with not offering power windows. So it did the next best thing from the brand’s clearly influential cost-cutting department: it placed the switches on the center console.

This is actually worse than it sounds. In front, the Liberty had four window switches mounted in between the seats. That’s fairly normal for a lot of automakers who are too cheap to do two window setups for right- and left-hand-drive cars. But in back, Jeep said “screw the doors!” and put two more unlit and unmarked window switches at the base of the center storage bin. That meant if you wanted to roll your window down, you had to hunch forward and feel around in the dark until you grabbed the switch. Here’s my question: how much more would it have cost to relocate the switches to the doors?

Really, it’s a wonder Chrysler went into bankruptcy.

But while the Ion was bad, its roof rails were even worse.

When the Ion was launched in 2003, it offered interchangeable roof rails that could be ordered in various colors to suit your mood. The press cars were all blue with silver roof rails and four-spoke wheels, which were tremendously unsuited to anything except a really cheap Saturn.

Unfortunately, the Ion wasn’t a really cheap Saturn: an Ion 3 with the roof rails cost around $17,000 with shipping. Back then, you could (barely) get a Toyota Camry for that. The Ion also had a rather dull 2.2-liter engine, and, most importantly, the worst interior in the business.

But I’ll always remember the silver roof rails that set the Ion apart on the road from all the people who bought normal, respectable cars. You still see them from time to time. I wonder if GM still sells replacements? Just in case you want the world to know your mood has changed.

If you’re still not convinced Porsche was out of its element in the SUV world, check out today’s feature fail: the Cayenne’s rear-mounted spare tire. Yes, that’s right: the first few years of Cayenne production included a rear-mounted spare tire option, sort of like the old-school Land Rover Discovery.

The rear-mounted spare was exactly as you might expect: tremendously cumbersome. And since you had to move the heavy housing and tire before you could open the rear hatch, you couldn’t back into parking spots if you wanted to load anything into the cargo area.

It gets worse.

The rear-mounted spare was actually an option, and a rather expensive one. (I can’t remember the figure, but easily above $1,000.) And since it extended the length of the car – at the expense of visibility – the spare made it easier to back into solid objects. Of course, this damaged the housing, which is probably on back order until they can get at least five orders for it. In other words, never.

Obviously, Porsche dropped the option after only a few years. But there are still a few Cayennes roaming around out there with rear-mounted spare tires.

The early Viper used this three-spoke wheel design, which may have been intended to take peoples’ attention off the fact that the rest of the car was so awful. Indeed, the three-spoke wheel was the least concerning thing on the Viper, considering its heavy truck transmission, exhaust pipes that burned your legs and plastic side windows that had to be manually taken on or off. Let’s not forget about the other three spoke wheel, which steered the car and had no sign of an airbag.

Saturn SC

Saturn was the king of three-spoke wheels, debuting the design in the early 1990s. While most people think the Ion used a three-spoke wheel, it didn’t – instead, the company offered an equally ugly four-spoke wheel. This image shows by far the most offensive of Saturn’s three-spoke wheel designs, screaming “look how cheap I am!” to drivers across the country. (And possibly Canada, which is the only other market with standards low enough to accept Saturn.)

Infiniti QX4

The Infiniti QX4 subscribes to the “fool me once, shame on you” theory of three-spoke wheels, in that it used them on not one generation but rather two. Apparently, this was an attempt to start a trend. It failed, as did the QX4, which would now be called the QX40, or maybe the QX50.

GMC Envoy

The GMC Envoy was the only SUV to adopt three-spoke wheels after the trend-setting Infiniti QX4 showed us just how cool they could be. There were actually two separate three-spoke wheel designs on the Envoy, and while the other one was uglier, the one in the photo was more popular. Neither should’ve reached production. But then again…

Saab 9-5

Saab attempted a lot of three-spoke wheels over the years in an effort to prove how different they were. While one of the worst designs is shown here – but, really, it’s tough to pick a favorite. Saab finally ditched the three-spoke wheels in the late-2000s and immediately went into bankruptcy. Oops. In this case, maybe different was a good thing.

Range Rover Classic

Shown here in its natural setting, the Range Rover Classic used the only three-spoke wheel design that’s ever looked good – though I may be biased, as I owned one. Mine was a 1995, which meant it didn’t come with three-spokes from the factory. Fortunately, finding a set of used wheels was as easy as calling any junkyard in New England.