Fire up the... Range Rover Classic

MAYBE it's being in my twenties or having some journalistic sense of derring-do, but I'm honestly not scared of crashing a new car.

Whether it's a supermini for six grand or a swish saloon for sixty, there's always a sense of that if you prang it - and luckily, I never have - they can always make another one. But being entrusted with a priceless piece of Britain's motoring heritage? Terrifying, to be honest.

It's not often you get given the chance to drive the very first production Range Rover ever made, which has been quietly taken out of the retirement to celebrate its 40th anniversary. It's a great way of finding out just how much the most famous 4x4xfar, and motoring has a whole, have come on since 1970. At least I'm in familiar surroundings; my dad owns one in exactly the same Tuscan Blue shade as this one.

The first thing you notice is the sound those big doors - and unlike modern Range Rovers, there are only two - make. Modern cars all have the same, slightly dull thud, but the bank vault metallic clink you get here is from a bygone era. It's the sound of the Sixties, but like The Beatles, it still sounds great.

But the best bit is the burble the Rover V8 under the bonnet makes when you start it up, which even today is still the soundtrack of an entire generation of British cars. It's just a shame that it's drowned out by the whining transmission, which really will give you a headache if you go much about forty.

Compared with almost any modern motor you have to admit it's absolutely terrible; it's noisy, it rolls and lurches through the corners, it's not actually terribly well equipped for a luxury car, realistically you're going to struggle to get past fifty, and it drinks like a fish. It's a creaking British Leyland relic, but I love to bits.

Even with petrol touching £1.20 a litre it just about makes sense - it's tax exempt, for starters - but it's not only blessed with timeless styling, unstoppable off-road ability and an elegance you just don't get from most new cars.

Just make sure you don't crash it.

As published in The Champion on June 16, 2010