"This is not a car, madam!"

I was in a giddy fog, quite like Mister Toad, totally in thrall to the hum of a hot roadster. Frances was shocked. She never imagined me much of a car man and, the truth was, I never had been. Cars were a convenient mode of transport, nothing more. But this was more. This was a speedy beast posing as a car. And I was posing as its trainer. But it did not last long. The euphoric fog lifted and reality set in. I knew it would not be fair, or nice, to encumber my poor old parents with bags on laps while I sat up front like Stirling, or Mario, or Jackie, or Graham, or—