Autocar - First for car news and reviews

I trust that you are looking forward to, or enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding?

At Autocar there are some strong republican feelings among the younger members of staff. However, the old guard like myself, Lord Hilton of Holloway, Baron Bremner, Viscount Charles Hallett and Sir Steve Cropley, will be equipped with flasks of hot tea, little flags and tartan rugs on our knees as we watch the proceedings.

Surely we should be allowed to punch someone quite hard if they have misdescribed a vehicle?

After all the requirement to have an annual MOT test for pre-war cars may be scrapped following a meeting between transport minister Mike Penning and members of the All Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicles Group. Which is all fine and dandy, but the ability to at least slap someone who has promised on their Nan’s life that it has a full service history, when all they have is a Halfords receipt dated November 1993.

Like everyone else I was excited by the prospect of an M version of the 1-series and, to be honest it is pretty much what I’d expect at this period in history. It was a wonderful opportunity to go back to basics.

Now the 2002 wasn’t cheap and neither was a 323i, but you had wind up windows, steel wheels and no radio whatsoever. Those were the days when everything was an extra.

I notice that Toyota is celebrating the delivery of its 20 millionth vehicle in Europe. Hats off to it, as it has achieved this in a remarkably short time. With nothing better to do, I spent an idle half hour seeing how many cars the old BMC, British Leyland and Rover made since 1966 - and could not get anywhere near that figure.

Obviously 19 million of those cars will be Corollas and Starlets, but it is easy to overlook just how good some of Toyota's cars are. Just not on the breakdown front, although of course recalls is something else altogether.

Presumably Porsche announced yet another version of the 911 in Paris [two actually - ed]. That’s one reason why I wasn’t there; another was because I’ve been researching the wonderful world of Porkers.

Why I’ve been doing this won’t become obvious until about a year’s time. For the moment, though, with the help of pictures, learned volumes and rubbish I’ve written over the years I can pretty much decide which ones I like.

What do you think the average annual mileage was? I say this because ever since I can remember it’s always been guesstimated at 12,000, whereas people who didn’t go anywhere and just clogged up the motorway with their bad driving only did 6000 or less.

Well according to auctioneers Aston Barclay, average fleet mileages have actually fallen to 11,349 in 2009 from 13,746 in 2008.