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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.

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?

By popular belief, automatic cars are only for people who can’t cope with a clutch. They take away all your control. They’re always going wrong and when they do they’re very expensive to fix. As a keen driver you’d expect me to denounce the auto ‘box as the root of all evil. But, you see, they’re not.

I’ve just realised it’s almost the second anniversary of my first ‘Auto’ purchase, a Rover 75, and it has to be said my only regret is not making the change earlier. Normally at this time of year I’d run what I call a “winter banger” for commuting and keep the V6 Rover for longer journeys. As things have turned out, the [manual] Saab hasn’t turned a wheel in three weeks. On paper it’s the ideal car for the job of shuttling me to and from work every day in all weathers but if I’m honest, every time I drive the old 900 with its heavy clutch it just seems like a workout, and I end up taking the lazy option. The Jatco ‘box in the Rover is just brilliant and it’s becoming hard to imagine life without it.

Of course I still have the MG which, on the right roads and away from the congested towns, cities and arteries of the South East, is still hugely entertaining for recreational driving. Could we reach the point soon where manuals are ‘just for fun’, or am I getting old and lazy far too quickly?

I’ll start with an admission. I’m a Jaguar nut. There’s something about every single one of those cars that hits the spot for me. Pedigree is probably the word I’m looking for. It’s therefore with a heavy heart that I’m parting with the X300 Sovereign I’ve been running for the last nine months. Quite simply, it’s been brilliant.

The first thing that strikes you is the ride and a general air of quality, all of which have contributed to making it one of the most satisfying used car buys ever. You could drive into a six-foot wide crater and, thanks to the suspension setup, never even notice. The Jag’s party trick, of course, is to dial up the instant fuel consumption display on the trip computer, select a low gear and accelerate hard. Minus figures are almost possible. But in all honesty, would you want to? It’s not that sort of car, and I’ve only really used it for the long motorway journeys which have been an absolute treat. Back in the summer Don Palmer kindly demonstrated a lap of Millbrook’s famous alpine circuit in it (my attempts being rather grandad-like), and what ensued was probably the wackiest thing I’ve ever seen. Various exotica were eaten alive one after another by the golden pipe-and-slippers mobile. And that’s the Jag ethos summed up, really. Regal yet sporting, it’s all there in one package.

You might think that the cost of all this and the sensible old school image would make it one best left to the likes of retired company directors and wedding hire companies, but you’d be wrong. The very best thing about the Sovereign is that it’s just sold for £100 less than I paid for it, and discounting petrol for a moment it’s barely cost me anything to run this once £40k luxobarge. That’s my kind of budget motoring. And yet amazingly there are still people who’ll go out next week and pay more than twice as much for a brand new Perodua Kelisa. Noooooo!

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?