It’s hot outside. It’s even hotter inside. My aching muscles are screaming for spinach like a weary Popeye beaten into submission. I’m back in 1935 driving a vehicle that is the epitome of sleekness and modernity that surely should be as breezy to manoeuvre as the period adverts would have claimed. In this age of power steering, anti-lock brakes and computer control have we all gone soft or were cars really this demanding back in the day? Of course, we must make allowances for our ages and attendant stiffness from lack of use, although as the day wears on and we both loosen up I begin to get the measure of this beautiful machine, with the car’s upper hand becoming less domineering.
So how was I so lucky to take this drive of a lifetime? It was my good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. The Airline had been a museum exhibit for decades but was in the process of recommissioning, to play a star role in this year’s centenary of Swallow to Jaguar following
