I woke up on the Thursday morning to start the big adventure. First the looser cruiser (the bus), then the hire car, then the MR2. Thankfully for my sanity the ride in the peasant wagon (the bus again) was short and I arrived at the car rental place. It was Enterprise for those that care. I’ll admit to being a cheapskate and choosing one of the cheaper cars because I only needed it for a few hours, but I purposely didn’t choose the cheapest of the cheap because I couldn’t face getting into a Daewoo Matiz. I’m not a badge snob or a car snob, or really a snob for anything, but I do have my standards and a car that looks like that is just embarrassing. You’d have to park it at the opposite end of the car park just to be sure nobody saw you getting in, sorry, squeezing in to such a repulsive abomination. Not that the Vauxhall Corsa I was given was much better.

I learnt to drive in the original Corsa and it was horrible, with numerous problems which amazingly were still present in the next model. It really was the car that announced to the world you know absolutely nothing about cars. The new model had some good press so I opened the door with a positive attitude. It looks OK, the interior was good quality and it was actually fairly comfortable, but that is roughly where the praise ends. I’d read about the cars weight and the piss poor petrol engines on offer and my god they weren’t kidding. This car had the 1.2 petrol engine developing 78 bhp. Really? Where were these horses? For driving in the city it was fine, and practically guarantees you’ll never be caught speeding, but the Corsa isn’t a city car – it’s a small car that needs to be at least capable on country roads and the motorway. Once up to speed on the motorway it was fine, the problem was getting up to speed. Acceleration is so slow you run the risk of being overtaken by wildlife, and should you be unfortunate enough to encounter a hill you’re buggered. Amazingly they also sell a 1.0 petrol engine developing 59 bhp. These can be found rolling backwards on hills. On the country roads things looked up – the cars handling is actually really good. I can’t say entertaining because the steering is so devoid of any feel, which is actually quite a shame. My final complaint was the ergonomics. Sure the seats were comfy, but the steering wheel wasn’t centred to the drivers seat, and for a normal guy (I’m 5ft 11) the dashboard controls are too far away to operate without leaning forwards. It’s a bit like the dash was designed for an orangutan.

We dropped the Corsa off and the very nice people at Enterprise drove us the couple of miles into Farnham to SIGNARAMA where I was collecting the MR2 from. We arrived and was greeted by Mo Stoner and Simon who was just finishing off the graphics for the car which were a lot more expensive than I was expecting. Mo gave me a quick guided tour of the car and showed me how to start it. My first impressions being it’s really rather loud, and sounds very much like a racing car. Marvellous! He then told me to reverse it back across the car park. The instructions were then clear – give it 5,000 rpm and drop the clutch. Really? OK. Vroom! OK, not exactly, but it did shift surprisingly well before I had to slam the anchors on.

The next task was of course getting it home. Within a mile we had the first of many disapproving nods of the head from an oncoming driver. Clearly looking like a bunch of chavs in a ‘it’s well mint innit’ car we headed in search of a petrol station. To my surprise, for a car that does 4,000 rpm at 70 mph and is 20 years old it was fairly economical, probably averaging around 40 mpg. We also took the time to check the tyre pressures as they looked a bit flat. Lets just say I’m glad air wasn’t charge by the psi added or it would have been expensive!

Exiting the petrol station we passed the first obstacle without problems (speed humps) and pointed the car in the direction of home, keeping our eyes peeled for police cars. While the car is road legal there are times when a quiet life is preferred. This is when we discovered ‘quiet’ and ‘racing car’ are not two words that go together. With a stripped out interior the cabin resembled a tin can with an engine thrashing away behind us. Oh the joys for the next 4 hours. Ian was well prepared and brought his noise isolating headphones with him. I on the other hand wasn’t so clever, but that’s hardly a shock to anyone.

We then discovered racing seats tend to give up their arse cushioning abilities after around the 90 minute mark, and while in most cars you can shuffle about to extend the gap between stops there is no such luck here. Numerous stops were made for leg stretching, sanity gathering and coffee drinking meaning we arrived home to disgruntled neighbours as the car rumbled up the road at 2am.