Fit for purpose

We were at the far end of the road, but one of our five test cars had been delivered to the other. It would be far easier for two of us to scoot on over there to collect it than arrange redelivery, so off went Andrew and I, him choosing one of the other test cars for the 10-mile return journey. And that’s how I became probably the first person in history to step out of the back of a Rolls-Royce Phantom and into the driver’s seat of a Fiat Panda.

How can these two possibly belong in the same test? They bookend the new car market – a cute, charming, small and affordable EV on one end, and the single most magnificent motor car half a mill will buy on the other. They have almost nothing in common, but they do share this: they know precisely, emphatically and without any doubt what they are for. And neither of them expends any energy trying to be anything more than that.

The same applies to the rest of our assembly, and to no lesser extent. That is the common thread, the one shared attribute that explains why you’re reading about a small city car, the ultimate plutocrat’s conveyance, a humble diesel estate, a carbon fibre supercar and a pure driver’s lightweight in a single story.