Pay to play

I’m only 19 years old but even I know there’s something magical about buying your first car. Not the car itself, obviously – that’s usually awful. I’m talking about the moment. The ritual. The sense that, finally, you’ve graduated from being driven around like luggage to being the one driving around. You’ve made it, the road is yours and you’ve finally joined the club.

Which is when you realise the club is mostly just older blokes arguing about EVs or who’s got the better classic.

Still, there’s a freedom to it because the keys are yours and the logbook’s in your name. True, the mats are half-melted and smell like something died in the footwell – but it’s yours. For a while, at least, you feel like you’ve crossed some kind of threshold.