Cars

And you thought I hated mobile death greenhouses! Not at all. I was practically born with a spanner in my hand, my childhood play house was an old Mini van in the back garden and we ran ageing Minis throughout my early youth. DMU 828A, FJH 581G, YMD 406H, AUR 146K - and then we graduated to a Maxi, GLC 928N, followed by a series of Metros. In those days any car not made in Japan (and especially anything which came out of Longbridge) was likely to need constant maintenance. They never broke down, but they rarely went from one year to another without something needing doing. I changed the clutch on the Maxi aged 15 (I had done the job by the time Dad finished his post-prandial ciggie and came to join me), I rebuilt the "new" van from the ground up as my first car.

But surely no car lover could possibly drive a Volvo? Guess again. The thing about Volvos is they will acommodate titanic voumes of "stuff" and still accelerate briskly, at least if you buy one with a decent-sized engine. And they tend not to break down. Front wheel drive is a recent innovation; remember the old 360GLT with its 112bhp 2 litre Bosch injected engine and the (close-ratio) gearbox over the back axle with a torque tube to the engine to keep it all from getting sloppy? That was a great car to drive, and it used to give the BMX Turbo Nutter Bastard Escorts a run for their money, too. And don't forget that the 850 was highly successful in the BTCC in the mid 90s. But actually I'm now a boring middle-aged old git and I like my home comforts, a car which can pull the skin off a rice pudding (193bhp) but I have no intention of ever exploring the limits of its handling, because the cargo is generally too precious: the kids. And me.

Of course, you may have heard that I have certain controversial opinions about driving and speed. True enough. This is based on personal experience - for example, having used the technique of driving flat-out to stay awake at 3am after a forty hour shift, I know that (a) it is f***ing stupid and (b) waking up on the rumble strips at 130mph is Very Scary Indeed. Kids, don't try this at home. I have stopped for a kip on every M3 overbridge between Southampton and Basingstoke at least once, I think. Madness. And part of the madness is working too far from where you live. Life is too short to spend so much of it just getting to and from work! So now I work closer to home and travel by train (where I can read a good book), or by bike (where I can enjoy the journey for its own sake and get fit into the bargain). But I am still a petrolhead under the lycra. I love the look and sound of big, highly tuned engines. And the only thing I have against BMWs is that when you drive one, people think you are a BMW driver...