Steve Cropley: Small and simple is the formula for driving nirvana

The writing style is nothing like your usual author-ese: it’s an entirely guileless account of Hill’s experiences, packed here with the minutiae of technology (with supporting drawings) and there with the author’s view of the company’s marketing and political challenges.

Sure, it’s opinionated, but the author’s authority is irresistible. Only those who truly study these cars and this era will read every word, but for them this book will be an absolute treasure.

Wednesday

Scottish driving routes are all the rage, and the latest and most fascinating – if the shortest – is the Jim Clark Trail, promoted by the recently expanded Jim Clark Museum in Duns. It’s only 50 miles of driving, but it connects the champion’s birthplace and grave, the museum, the place where his driving career began and where he watched his first motor race. It’s also an absorbing journey through some of the most uplifting countryside anywhere.

For soft southerners, it’s worth a driving trip to Scotland on its own. And, of course, if you’re prepared to venture 300 miles north (Scotland’s bigger than you think), you can tackle the North Coast 500 while you’re out. For full Jim Clark Trail details and more, visit jimclarktrust.com.

Friday

I’ve got a configurator obsession. What attracts me most is finding enticing specifications by ticking as few boxes as possible. It’s not about saving money (not one of my strengths; ask the Steering Committee), but I have always had the abiding feeling that car companies engineer ideal models, shortly before allowing marketing types to spoil them.

They do this by adding needlessly bigger wheels, shiny tailpipes, slabs of meaningless carbonfibre, aero gadgetry that works only above 120mph and £5000 sound-lab audio systems, even though a car’s continual background noise (in sound-lab terms) is never less than awful.

My recent drive in a no-frills Porsche 911 Carrera has added fuel to this fire: it convinced me that a superb car can be built for precisely £85,010, a cool £30,000 less than people usually pay for a loaded 911 S.