Two Espadas, 47 years

Scene One: Modena, northern Italy, early Saturday morning, May 1976. Nine hundred miles to the French coast at Calais, ferry to Dover and on to London. I want to be home tonight. There’s a Lamborghini Espada Series III in the hotel garage and its keys are in my pocket.

I’ve been in Modena all week seeing Ferrari, Maserati, De Tomaso and Lamborghini. Lamborghini’s genial sales director, Ubaldo Sgarzi, has asked if I will kindly deliver an Espada, the dramatic-looking Gandini-designed 154mph four-seater, to London. I’m – ahem – happy to oblige. No restrictions: go as fast as you like, Ubaldo says.

At 6am I fire her up, tootle from the hotel through Modena’s empty streets to the Autostrada del Sole and head north.