Riding along in my automobile....

I have always had a considerable passion for the motor car.

Not in a mechanical way, or, at least, not in the sense of wanting to be a mechanic - getting under the bonnet, understanding the workings, boasting about engine capacity and priding myself on a 'go-faster' stripe - but in an aesthetic and, well, a sort of sensual way.

There's something deeply romantic about the motor car. Think of the number of songs devoted to a set of wheels, the role they've played in your favourite movies over the years, as Morrissey sings in 'This Charming Man', "Why ponder life's complexities, when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat."

Anyone who's read J.G. Ballard's 'Crash' might confess to at least an understanding of the sexuality, the main protagonist's fantasy of dying in a high speed collision involving glamorous filmstar Elizabeth Taylor.

The smell of the leather, the reflection of the chrome, the joy of a walnut dash are all palpable when sitting in the driver's seat of an expensive sports car, resplendent in its own decadence; and that's all before the key is inserted into the ignition.

I do love to drive. Whether it be go-karting with friends or simply flooring the accelerator in my modest Fiesta.

The thrill of surging forwards, engine roaring beneath you as you watch the gauge of the rev counter flick up, drop at a gear change, then surge skywards again, is hard to resist.

Am I compensating for my repressed libido or simply just the size of my manhood? From the photos I took recently at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, it seems evident there's something going on.

***

The Festival is always held a week before the British Grand Prix in an attempt to lasso as many F1 drivers as possible into attending, but it was former champion Nigel Mansell's 1987 'Red 5' Williams that caught my eye.

I'm just about able to remember the car's finest moment when, driven to victory by Mansell in that year's Silverstone Grand Prix, he performed one of the most exciting and audacious overtaking manoeuvres in the history of the sport.

Dummying outside and then diving inside leader Piquet with just two laps to go, it was all the more impressive when you consider he had been a full 20 seconds behind him after his last pit stop.

At the end of the race the crowd invaded the circuit, bringing Mansell's car to a stop as they mobbed him with Union flags and gestures of celebration. Mounting the back of a steward's motorcycle to return to the pits, he stopped the driver deliberately at the spot where, just moments earlier, he had performed the feat. Jumping off the back of the bike and kneeling to the ground, he kissed the tarmac in thanks.