So when the pot finally does run dry, will the industry have to come to terms with the inevitable and cut production? Will scores of Hyundai dealers close? Or will the handouts just go on and on like a DFS sale?

It looks like the next couple of months at work are going to be pretty hectic, but at the moment I don’t care. I’m probably due a shouting at for something I forgot to do before going on leave but right now none of that matters because writing this from the garden of our villa in rural Provence all’s well with the world. It’s 29 degrees with a refreshing Mistral breeze, and the only company is the olive trees and the neat rows of vines, oh and the cicadas and the various other oversized creepy crawlies they have over here. I know it’s not good form to gloat, but – well, that’s the way it is sometimes.

Of course, my search for seclusion from the crowded little corner of England I call home has been typically eventful. I was supposed to be taking the XJR on its long distance trial, but intermittent running problems left us doubting its ability to make Calais let alone Cavaillon, so the job of getting us here was entrusted to my Rover 75. I could have headed straight for the autoroute but with all the grandeur of the Alps so close, it seemed a shame not to make a small deviation through Belgium, Germany and Switzerland on the way south.

A day on the autobahns, fast but civilised. A day on the Susten and Furka passes, tough but exhilarating. A day driving through rural France, terrifying. Yes, really.

There’s a road that threads its way south along the hillside from Apt near where we’re staying called the D943. It’s the equivalent of a ‘B’ road in the UK but poorly sighted and perilously narrow with no centre lines. If you look at it on a map, it’s just one long zig-zag. Hairpin left follows sharp right and then sharper right over narrow bridge. Repeat unremittingly for about ten kilometres. The longest straight is about enough to get the car into third for a second or two before going for the brakes again as the next chevron board looms large. ‘Roadcraft’ talks about something called limit point analysis for assessing the severity of bends but I don’t need that because I’ve got my parents in the car, so I just go by the volume of the wails of discontent in my left ear. Even I recognise, though, that this is a place for caution.

Unless you’re a local, it seems. Battered old 205s and Twingos (scrappage doesn’t seem to have caught on in these parts – good on them) appear from nowhere and form an impatient queue as I try to avoid the Xsara that’s just about to exit the blind left-hander where my front left wheel will be at roughly the same nanosecond. The fuel tanker ahead isn’t holding me up, it’s losing me rapidly. And the pretty little hillside villages of the Luberon are just as exciting. In the narrow winding streets there’s no one-way system, but the preferred practice seems to be to proceed at Mach One anyway and then hit the brakes hard if Monsieur E Leclerc happens to be coming around the corner. And finally, what’s the fascination with those annoying, noisy little scooters? Italy has a bit of a reputation for this sort of thing and you half expect rural France to be all nice and laid back with the occasional 2CV tootling along (though there are lots about), but it’s pretty manic on the roads here too.

I have to say, though, at this precise moment it doesn’t appear to matter.

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.

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.

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’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.

I’ve clocked up one or two miles over the weekend just gone. Actually, it was about 600 and mainly in the Maestro. North Wales seemed as good a place as any for a proper shakedown. When it comes to fulfilment behind the wheel I’ve always thought of the Highlands as being the place to go (at least within UK shores), but satisfyingly there’s some strong competition closer to home. To the B4501, all I can say is… Wow!

But there was just one thing that let it down, and it’s increasingly becoming an issue for me at the moment. Just what lengths does one have to go to to accomplish the simple task of obtaining a tank full of fuel these days? Or even half a tank.

The game goes a bit like this. With the needle hovering just above the red I head for the nearest filling station only to find it’s closed. This is rural Wales and it’s after 6pm. No problem, there’s one in a town 8 miles away. That’s closed too. Sat nav says the next one is in Betws-y-Coed another 20 miles away, low fuel light has been on for a while by now and sat nav is useless anyway because the battery has had enough for one day. It’s a long drive and every hill sends the needle veering ominously off the bottom of the dial. When I do find a filling station that’s open and has fuel, every car in the area seems to have beaten me to it. Sound familiar?

Of course, there are good commercial reasons why the independent filling station is a dying breed in the 21st Century, but at what cost I wonder?