All I want for Christmas . . .

I've never hankered after a sports car - except for a model that the Kent police used back in the 1940s or 50s, the MG Midget Mk II.  Even now, 50 years later, I still think that is a little beauty, although at my age I prefer to drive something a little more comfortable and a little more technically advanced.

Nor has the out-of-this-world possibility of ever owning a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche or Rolls Royce ever appealed to me.  No, my preference is, and always has been, for something a little more, well, some might say pedestrian (although how a car could ever be called pedestrian is something I have yet to work out).  I think the highest I ever aspired to was probably a Volvo estate.

That said, I did - long ago - have a thing about Alvis cars.  There was never a chance that I could own

one, but there was something so suave about them, an understated refinement.  This was not your common or garden Rolls Royce, Daimler or Bentley - this was a gentleman's car, decidedly unflashy.  To be seen driving an Alvis was to announce to the world that one had arrived but one did not wish to be classed as nouveau riche.

James Bond, as you will know, drove an Aston Martin.  Those cars don't have quite the cachet of the Alvis, but the new Rapide would suit me down to the ground.

Just feast your eyes on that!  0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds, a top speed of 203mph.  Just one snag - it costs about £150,000!