It was supposed to be une promenade dans le parc: hop into Renault’s own meticulously prepared 1978 5 at 5am on a Monday morning, take some nice pictures and a putter down memory lane, eventually arriving in Paris around lunchtime for a first encounter with the new electric Renault 5. Instead, the hour is 5.30am and I’m on the hard shoulder of the M23 on the outskirts of Crawley, being buffeted about by lorries and freezing mes nipples off just 14 miles from where we started.
Rewind 30 minutes and the mood was more upbeat. There’s me, sleepy eyed but full of spark and purpose, tiptoeing out the house like a burglar, taking woofer, or the kids. I slip into the driver’s seat, pull out the choke and twist the key. It catches first time and settles to a clattering, high idle, filling the garage with a white fog that reeks of my misspent youth. I waggle it into first, fumble for the lights and end up beeping the horn. Stealth getaways in the Seventies were .
