It’s become as much of a Christmas tradition as the turkey and mince pies. The Top Gear book, magazine and of course, the Jeremy Clarkson “Smash another Rover” DVD. Once your family and friends know you’re a bit of a petrolhead you’re guaranteed at least one of the above every year for ever more.

This year’s book is called “Top Drives”, and I’m actually finding it difficult to put it down. It’s a compilation of road trips taken from Top Gear magazine over recent years, and it’s brilliant. Because Top Gear isn’t a title I regularly buy most of these have so far passed me by. They’re more about capturing the experience than exploring the finer points of the cars themselves, but when those experiences range from the Arctic in an Ariel Atom (yes, Brrrr!) to a Fiat 126 in Poland, you can’t help but want to read and read. As you’d expect, the writing is brought to life with some typically breathtaking photography. And as you might also expect, I’m already punching things like “Route 66 Mustang Hire” into Google. It never hurts to dream.

What makes this book so good is the sense of freedom, which is exactly what we need in the depths of winter and in a country where limited space and restrictive policy so often conspire to make the prospects of what we might consider a genuinely top drive unreliable at best. As someone who always turns straight to the road trip in every magazine he picks up, I’ve decided there’s a market for more volumes like this. CAR magazine, what are you waiting for?