Clarkson on Cars by Jeremy Clarkson Read Free Book Online

is it any good to find some old wreck in a farmyard with the plate you’ve always wanted. And anyway, in 1983, the Swansea computer erased all knowledge of any car which hadn’t been taxed within the previous two years.
    Providing, however, the donor and recipient vehicles meet with the approval of those inscrutable chappies at your local vehicle-licensing office, all you have to do is obtain a V317 form from your LVLO, fill it in, hand it, along with the two requisite tax discs and registration documents to the inscrutable chappie, give him £80 and head off back to your little corner of the earth.
    Alternatively, you can ring up one of the endless cherished-number-plate dealers in the
Sunday Times’
Look Business Personal Finance News, section 24, and tell him what you’re after.
    They keep details of what’s on offer and who wants what and are normally able to help, providing your request isn’t too parochial.
    However, if you wish to take the plunge, I should do so in a hurry because when I win the football pools, I shall buy up every number I consider tasteless and throw them into the Marianas Trench.
    Then, I shall bomb all numbered houses with names and if there’s anything left in the kitty, I will erect kart tracks on every cricket pitch in Christendom.

Big Bikes
    I do not hold with the decision to hold Britain’s première motor race at Silverstone for five years on the trot, because it is a very boring circuit indeed, but at least if you’re important, like me, you can camp out in the middle and run into nice people who say even nicer things, like why don’t you come and have a spot of lunch?
    The big hassle is that if you wish to run into a lot of these people you must be in several places all at the same time.
    Which in turn means you have to forge expeditions that make Ranulph Fiennes’s Transglobe jaunt look like a Saturday cycle ride to the shops.
    The last time I spent a few days at Silverstone I had a motorcycle at my disposal which, in theory, is the ideal tool for the job but (and this may come as a surprise to those of you who know me as a devil-may-care kinda guy who thinks nothing of hanging upside down in stunt planes) I do not know how to ride things with two wheels.
    I had a go but after I’d engaged the clutch and applied full throttle, I found myself spinning round in a rather noisy circle.
    This, I learned later, was because I’d forgotten to release the front brake. I also learned that the onlookers would have been immensely impressed with the stunt had they not caught a glimpse of my countenance, which, instead of bearing a proud and cocky grin, registered only abject terror.
    And that was the end of my brief encounter with motorcycles, which, I have decided, should be left to those with acne, no imagination and a penchant for wearing rubber clothes.
    Not being someone who readily goes back on his word, I found myself facing something of a dilemma as the Grand Prix weekend loomed ever nearer. Was I, a) to forget my vow and get a motorcycle; b) get a push bike and risk a cardiac arrest; or c) should I rely on shoe leather, which would mean a range limitation of no more than one or two feet in any direction as a result of acute, inherent and irreversible laziness?
    The answer, as is always the case in such cheap games, was in fact, d) none of these.
    Suzuki and Honda came to the rescue with a brace of four-wheeled motorbikes which seemed to offer the perfect blend of nippiness (sorry), fresh-air thrills and car-like safety.
    In fact, they didn’t. The Honda fell short of the mark by some considerable margin because it is, without a shadow of doubt, the most frightening thing yet created by man. Which is saying something.
    The Suzuki failed to live up to my expectations because it is runner-up to the Honda in the sheer terror stakes.
    Richard Branson has driven a powerboat across the Atlantic in seven minutes; he has flown a hot-air balloon the size of Birmingham over the same