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Typical. As soon as I bring my Maestro home there’s a painful blister on my left foot, making each gear change an acutely uncomfortable experience. Being as I’ve just taken part in the Allegro Club’s annual economy run I’m cursing it for not choosing the other foot.

Even so the MG did itself proud, achieving 44.89 mpg over the 43 mile route through Hampshire, a mixture of dual carriageways, ‘B’ roads and urban traffic. On the initial run my aim was to keep the engine spinning below 2500 rpm as much as possible, which meant no more than 55 mph even on the fastest stretches of road and generally one gear higher than I’d normally favour through the speed limits. One interesting observation I made on a quiet A31 was the number of motorists not participating in the run who seemed quite content to bumble along at about the same speed. Clearly we weren’t the only drivers trying to burn as little fuel as possible.

Of course, economy driving isn’t just about driving a bit slowly. I wanted to see how far I could get without having to stop and that requires healthy following distances and careful anticipation at every roundabout and every traffic light. I managed as far as the Shepherd & Flock roundabout in Farnham where it seemed the long tailbacks were going to render all my previous efforts worthless, but once out of the Surrey town it was almost a clear run to the finish. To the group at the pedestrian crossing in Four Marks for pressing the button at precisely the wrong moment, I hold you personally responsible…

My second run resulted in 26.99 mpg. I’ll leave you to imagine how I achieved that, but needless to say it was significantly more entertaining from my point of view than the annual procession around Monaco on telly. Austin Allegros on the run achieved results of up to 58 mpg, with my car about 6^th from the bottom in the final standings on account of its comparatively big 2-litre lump. I’ve concluded that ‘eco driving’ techniques do make a difference and old cars aren’t the filthy fume belchers our government would perhaps like us to believe.

Over the last decade or so I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time reading about other people being paid to drive various cars that don’t belong to them, so on the very rare occasion someone chucks me the keys to something I haven’t driven before and asks me what I think I can only jump at the chance. It doesn’t happen very often, but today I drove a friend’s original XJ40 based XJR. Welcome back to the world of the ‘80s city stockbroker.

Four miles isn’t enough to form much of a bond, but it’s just enough to get a few first impressions together. The first thing you notice the instant you begin to move is the steering, which is heavy. The small wheel jigs all over the place in response to every tiny imperfection in the road surface which those wide tyres seem to be so good at finding. If that’s what it’s like at low speeds, I got the impression that keeping this leviathan pointing where I wanted it with a few more horses unleashed would be a bit of a struggle, but thankfully that wasn’t the case on my short drive. The engine’s the standard 4-litre AJ6 used elsewhere in the range, and as I’d expected it’s all very serene at lower speeds. Kickdown from 30 didn’t initially result in any fireworks but it does seem to come to life more and more the faster you get – most of the power seemingly emerging once beyond about 3500rpm.

And beyond that I’ll have to reserve judgment. It will be interesting to find out how the later supercharged XJR compares, and I’ve a feeling I’m going to have ample chance to do that.

There's only one car that these could be destined for...

I’ve got a new set of wheels, but the rest of the car is in Gloucestershire. Allow me to explain. A while ago I struck up an agreement with a friend whereby he’d loan me his Jaguar XJR for a few months, and all I had to do was stump up the cost of sorting it out with a clean MOT. Since I’d always fancied a supercharged XJ on our driveway I could hardly refuse. I’d been watching a tidy sapphire ‘M’ reg on on ebay for a while and it seems there are few more affordable ways of installing 322bhp beneath your right foot these days, but I’d rather keep the money for my holiday this year.

So that’s how I ended up outside an industrial unit near Dagenham on Sunday evening, meeting a man in a van with some wheels. For reasons I haven’t yet grasped, the car’s sitting on a set of Sovereign alloys at the moment and we wanted to restore a bit of originality. Unfortunately good 17 inch XJ-Sport alloys are getting ever more scarce, but it looks like my £195 on ebay has bought me a perfectly usable set. All the tyres are Pirelli P-Zeros with a good 4-5mm tread and no obvious damage, so we might even get away without having to approach any banks over funding for replacements for a while at least.

Now we just need to get them united with the car, then it’s play time.

I wonder what’s being said at Honda’s Tokyo HQ this weekend? After three - let’s face it - fairly mediocre seasons in F1 they run out of money (so the press release implies) and sell Honda F1 Racing Team to Ross Brawn, just as it approaches its finest hour. You can’t blame a manufacturer for wanting to protect its core business interests, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Was that one-two finish all down to the Mercedes engines? I’m not convinced.

I’ve never been a particularly dedicated F1 follower, but I do think this season’s already got the makings of an epic battle. Will it keep me on the edge of my seat all summer? Probably not, but after today’s race it’s looking anything but dull.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time this week playing with the ‘StreetView’ feature on Google Maps. Coverage of some of the UK major cities including all of Greater London was launched last Thursday amid much publicity and after many hours of armchair exploration, I’m quite excited about it. There’s nothing worse than driving hundreds of miles only to find roads, scenery and traffic that don’t live up to expectations. You can usually get a vague idea from a glance at a map, but beyond that it’s all a bit of a mystery.

The one thing I don’t understand is the uproar over privacy that’s constantly blighted the project. All the images are taken in public places and I could, if I wanted to, quite legitimately walk around the mean streets of Surrey with my camera and put the pictures onto this website. Such was the outcry, I did wonder briefly if we might be nearing a time where simply carrying a camera might require a license!

A38, Longbridge, Birmingham. Hang on, something's missing...

The view that says I'm nearly at work. Yippee.

Why I'm always going on holidays in Scotland.

The old American West you see in the movies really does still exist. Is that a '70s Buick on the left or am I showing my ignorance? Either way, I want one!

I remember following a television series a few years ago called “Wrecks to Riches” in which Mike “you’re ‘avin a larrf” Brewer attempted to turn a modest handfull of bank notes into enough money to buy a brand new car. The format was incredibly simple. He’d walk into a used car yard, drive back out again in a £300 Volkswagen Polo, give it a bit of a wash and some new wheel trims and Hey presto! It’s suddenly doubled in value. In each show the new total would be used to trade up to something more valuable, and the profit margin would increase by less and less believable amounts.

I’ve been giving some thought to my recent car history, and I’ve realised that what I’ve actually done is to achieve the exact opposite. In fact come to think of it, the closest I’ve yet come to making a profit on a car was the Jaguar Sovereign on which I only made a £100 loss after nine months. The secrets of my success in haemorrhaging large amounts of money as quickly as possible have taken me many years to perfect, and include things like being ridiculously impatient to close deals, buying mainly from dealers and choosing unfashionable models with a tendency to self-destruct - preferably in an expensive and terminal way. Using this clever formula I’ve somehow gone from buying a £3500 Triumph Spitfire to selling a GM Saab 900 for £390 in the space of just five years. You’d think I’d know better by now.

Getting up at dawn and driving up to Lates in Rugby at the weekend it didn’t take me long to get bored with the monotony of the motorway network, and before I knew it I’d reverted to my usual inclination when I’m in no particular hurry of turning off onto ever more minor roads following signs to place names just because they look interesting and they’re vaguely north of wherever I am at that particular moment. You might have been to every corner of Britian, but if you only ever use the motorways you’ve barely seen any of it. And what’s more you’re missing some truly fantastic roads. Apart from the lack of traffic, rural roads offer so much more to stimulate the driver. Dare I say it, they may even be enjoyable at times.

But they’ve also got the potential to be dangerous, and clearly something needs to be done about this. So we’ve now got a goverment department proposing to take the serious issue of road safety and tackle it with a blanket 50mph National Speed Limit and even more speed cameras. Come on, it’s hardly revolutionary is it?

I’m all for speed limits where they’re genuinely needed, but what we’re doing now is actually going to reduce road safety. We’ve already created a mindset that almost abdicates the driver from responsibility by implying that all one needs to do to remain safe is to stick to a speed limit, such is the constant emphasis on speed alone. Lowering the national limit across the board will create monotony and frustration on every piece of road, and it’ll only serve to encourage further disrespect for the law. It seems we’re always feeling sorry for ourselves and I often switch off when I hear people whinging continually about nanny states and speed cameras (the latter have never bothered me particularly), but this did leave me wondering where we’re really going now. Probably nowhere fast.

Like every Rover 75 owner with a V6 I’ve been dreading the 6 year / 90,000 mile service. It’s supposedly a day-long job to renew the three timing belts and it seems most garages charge a price to match. With residuals on these cars being what they are your options are to dig deep and blow perhaps a third of your cars resale value or put it off and hope you’ll get away with it. Not ideal.

Fortunately an independent MG Rover specialist in Warwickshire has a more affordable alternative, and I can honestly say I’ve just spent a very enjoyable morning watching my car being serviced. We’re not talking back-street mechanics either, but people who have many years of main dealer experience with Rover cars, international customers and a month-long waiting list, even though they don’t advertise.

Almost before you’ve turned the engine off the car is up in the air and to the casual observer the whole procedure is a bit like watching a Formula 1 pit crew in action - they’ll carry out up to four belt changes in a weekend so it’s all very well rehersed and in my case completed in under three hours. There’s no distant service manager on the phone either. You see everything for yourself as it happens, and to be honest the team at Lates 600 made it all look rather easy. I have to admire anyone who knows their way around a car so well that they can half-empty an engine bay in less time than it would have taken me to remove one of the road wheels.

It seems we’ve found the reason behind the slight lack of power I’ve been experiencing too. Testing showed my power ‘VIS’ motor has failed - more on that in a future instalment. Front tyres and a replacement thermostat are also on the shopping list. I suppose the money’s not much use in the bank at the moment.

What's the last car you'd choose to take on a track day? (Photo: Robert Hands)

When the Institute of Advanced Motorists invite you to a Driver Improvement Day, you’re half expecting some kind of exercise involving lots of cones and glacially slow manoeuvres. As they’ve proven at Mallory Park today, if you believe all the old stereotypes you’re missing out.

The track day, sorry, Driver Improvement Day, was my first venture onto a proper circuit and it’s not something I’ll forget in a hurry. That first drive around the circuit to get to the paddock where we were assembled was nothing short of amazing. I’ve become quite familiar with Mallory as an occasional spectator and snapper, but somehow once you’re on the tarmac everything takes on a whole new dimension.

Having been paired with another member our instructor for the afternoon was Frank, an ex-police advanced driver. After a couple of sighting laps in which Frank would talk me through the best lines to take through the corners, I’d be able to gradually raise my pace as my confidence grew and I got used to where to brake, turn in, exit, apply power and so on. Mallory is a wonderful circuit for a track day novice at just over 1.3 miles in length and with a mixture of fast and slow bends. The long, sweeping right-hander at Gerard’s is particularly satisfying. Set the car up right on entry and it’ll glide around beautifully. Enter a bit too fast off the main start/finish straight and there’s nothing you can do but keep everything smooth and hope there’s enough grip in the tyres when it tightens a little more about a third of the way around. You feel the chassis working and the tyres digging in. You’re acutely aware that one slight lift of the right foot will have you oversteering right into the Armco. The chicane at Edwina’s was an interesting one too, and deceptively tight. I don’t think the idea was to take it with the tyres chirping, but I’m easily amused like that.

You might wonder what relevance all this has to road driving, and the answer is probably more than you’d expect. I learned a great deal about myself and my car, how to control it and how it responds to extremes I’ll hopefully never encounter on the road. It was also a good chance to repeatedly practice getting that critical position, speed and gear right before entering corners. Rush this on road or track and things start going wrong, but at least on the track there’s not much to hit if they do.

Everyone should try a track day at least once, and preferably with a good instructor in the passenger seat. There’s no denying it was mentally and physically hard work, and it’s certainly done nothing for the life of my brakes and tyres, but that’s a small cost for an afternoon’s blissful escape from the traffic and speed limits that so often taint driving in Britain. Heading back down the A5 at the end of the day I felt more calm and fulfilled than I have for a long time - it was a lovely drive. So, a bit more of that this year I think.

It’s a funny business, searching for a new car. Especially if you’re not quite sure what it is you’re looking for. When my father’s 2001 Focus developed a suspension noise that signalled a possible… wait for it… garage bill, it was instantly clear that it had to go. As far as he’s concerned, once a car even hints that it might require any expenditure beyond the annual service, fuel, tax and insurance it becomes a major financial liability.

The dilemma was what to replace it with. It couldn’t be another Focus. Too boring. How about a Volvo C30 or Audi A3? Not impressed, not enough rear vision. The new Scirocco looked like a contender for a while, but not at that price. Then we went through the Golf ‘Blue Motion’ phase, but thankfully Volkswagen’s overpriced eco-car quickly fell out of favour because of its odd gearing. Nothing French would do either.

So in the end we bought a Saab 9-3. Obviously. It’s a 2008 facelift Vector Sport, so essentially Aero trim sans bodykit, wheels and brakes. First impressions (from the passenger seat, so far!) are good. The 150bhp 1.9TiD power unit packs quite a punch and with oodles of lower to mid-range torque available to assist in making respectable progress the car’s no slouch. The lowered sports chassis seemed to be playing its part on Hampshire’s B-roads this afternoon too, poise and stability easily a world apart from the old GM 900 I’m running at the moment. It’s actually quite comfortable too.

As we collected the car from Newbury another thing I was able to reflect on was how painless the whole experience of buying a nearly-new car seems to be these days, especially with the market in its present state. Once you know roughly what you want, it’s just a case of getting on the internet and playing the dealers off against each other until you find the best package – many will discount more heavily than you’d expect. All the Saab agents we dealt with were unfailingly helpful and professional, with none of the kind of arrogance I’ve experienced when dealing with certain MG Rover franchises in times past. In our case a £10k saving on a car under a year old wasn’t a bad result, all things considered. It seems you really can’t lose right now.