If you ever plan to motor west, Travel my way, Take the highway that is best. Get your kicks on route sixty-six. After 6 weeks of selling ice cream on the Boardwalk, we’re heading west, pushing out our own new frontier…

It’s 1975 and I’d begun studying English & American Literature at the University of East Anglia. A subject chosen with the hope of spending a year abroad at a US university. I love american culture and the American car is a huge part of that mythology. I can’t wait.

1974, I’m 17 and my provisional driving licence has arrived. But I didn’t rush at learning to drive. It was like getting the chance to meet your hero. You just know it’s bound to be a disappointment. And with learning to drive you have to face a real test at the end – that most people fail, at least once.

If you read the last chapter of my ‘auto biography’, you’ll know I can’t remember a life before loving cars. Childhood over, let’s start this chapter in my early teenage years. Not old enough to drive a car, but really too old to play with toy cars anymore…

To welcome the New Year, here is the start of a series of posts chronicaling my love affair with cars. If you also had a childhood full of Corgi models and Airfix kits you’ll understand…

…. I feel as though I’m surfacing slowly from a deep sleep. I can hear Luisa talking about me in an urgent voice. I slowly open my eyes to find myself lying on the floor by the fire. Oh, and the zoom is still happening, but I seem to be the subject of the conversation. What the hell…?

Zoom isn’t an ice lolly anymore, but an application allowing us all to fly out into cyberspace to meet up; fighting coronavirus and saving our social lives in lockdown.. And it doesn’t even cost six new pence -it’s free.