I first to know the Skoda estate when being given a lift by the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance. It was hard to see what his car’s interior was like because it resembled a landfill site: a mix of previous lunches on the go, dog hair, mud and spent…
I’ve never been entirely sure about convertibles. I was put off in my younger days by a friend’s Alfa Romeo Spider. It was pretty with its Pininfarina styling but with the hood down your hair was parted in the middle by the wind, you couldn’t hear yourself speak and most…
What defines the most luxurious car in the world? The Rolls-Royce boasts unrivalled build quality, of course, with an eye-watering price tag to match. It is hefty and has a commanding presence on the road. It’s always gleaming: you never see a dirty Rolls because a chauffeur is usually employed…
My first car was a Renault 5. I adored it with the amour of a Frenchman. It was black with a white stripe, and in the early 1980s no one had a black car unless you were a London taxi driver – unlike today when every other car is a…
The Ford Ranger is our nation’s favourite pickup. Launched a quarter of a century ago, it now claims more than half of the UK’s pickup market, putting it in the top 20 of all cars sold annually. It has endured as a rugged and reliable workhorse, beloved of tradesmen, but…
Would you ride in a driverless car? If the answer is ‘no’ you’re far from alone: fewer than a quarter of all road users say they would trust a driverless car or feel comfortable travelling in one. We’ll soon have the chance to decide for ourselves. Trials of ‘robotaxis’ will…
The year was 1970, the Beatles had tragically broken up and Apollo 13 had narrowly avoided the same fate. Into this tumultuous decade launched two innovative new products that were to redefine transport for a generation: the Boeing 747 and the Range Rover. While the last ‘jumbo jet’ rolled off…
For a dog, the finest perfume is eau de fox, essence of dung … anything is better than smelling clean. But having a dog smell lingering in your car isn’t the pleasantest way to enjoy a journey. So we’ve asked around those in the know and discovered some remedies to…
There was a time (and you may find this hard to believe, kids) when the SUV didn’t exist. It was estate cars that did all the hard work back then. My childhood was full of Cortinas and Mini Travellers doing school runs and shopping, Volvos being very sensible and, bizarrely,…
He was a prolific writer, the first Briton to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, who nonetheless declined the appointment as Poet Laureate and turned down a knighthood. Rudyard Kipling was feted in his day for his portrayal of stiff-upper-lip Englishness – even though his traditional values and literary…
