Back in the driving seat

I’M JUST BACK from a fabulous summer evening blast along local backroads in my E30. I’ve missed having it around while it was in storage, and the weather since it returned hasn’t always been the best. Still, there have been a few memorable drives.

I collected it from its hidey-hole at) on 19 May – pretty much the soonest I could, after travel restrictions were eased. I’d initially had 24 March in my diary, but that was just a day or two too late… Even so, the reunion was unusual: I couldn’t meet up with Richard Hodson (Mr RH); instead, the car had been left, sanitised and secured, for me to drive away without ceremony. But, boy, did it look the business. Richard told me over the phone: ‘It’s such a lovely, original car, but the lighting in our storage facility is very unforgiving, and it highlighted a lot of swirl marks. So we’ve detailed it.’