An Estate Car Named Desire : A Life on the Road Paperback

Even as a toddler, Martin Gurdon was obsessed with cars. Before he could read or write he could distinguish a vehicle passing in the street from the purr of its engine.

His first car-not strictly legally-was as a fifteen-year-old, parked round the corner from his boarding school, and driven up to London when bunking off.

At one time or another he has owned or driven most of the truly dreadful, but often bizarrely loved cars that were produced by British Leyland Corporation, the conglomeration that cemented the death of the indigenous British car industry.

Amongst them a succession of Morris Marinas, often kept running by cannibalized wrecks found in junk yards.

But he always hankered after that thing of beauty his father once owned, a 1950s Bristol 401.

Perhaps only naturally, his ambition was always to become a motoring journalist, despite it seeming questionable anyone would be insane enough to offer him a job.

He's never actually owned a Reliant Robin, but he has almost been killed by one...