ROD KER POWER TO THE PEDAL

Could it really be a quarter of a century ago that I cycled to the NEC? Well, yes it could be, and in fact it definitely is because the proof is staring back from an ancient WP file. I’m talking motor shows here, the strangely successful variety staged in the swish newish NEC before we shuffled into the next millennium and things went wrong again.

Wrong again? Yes indeed. Let us rewind to the second half of the 1970s (make mine a Datsun 240Z, please) when London hosted the final Earls Court Motor Show, and the last piles of inebriated motoring journos were being bulldozed back towards their Kensington digs. Stylish place