Tuesday and Wednesday saw me working in Dolgellau in the heart of Snowdonia. Home these days is near Presteigne, on the England/Wales border. The trip’s 70 miles or so, depending on the route you take, but all of them involve hills – not gentle rolling slopes, but big, steep sided mounts where the roads have to zig-zag up one side and down the other.

When it comes to the development of cars and motorcycles, manufacturers have proven time and again that the lessons they learn from putting their cars through their paces in racing environments, can eventually be used to improve their products for the general public on the road.

A little discussed aspect of the growth of driverless cars is the related assumption that we will need many fewer vehicles overall.

Ever since I sat in my first (toy) car and practised parking in imaginary parking spaces in my back garden at the age of two, I knew a love of driving that would surely last a lifetime had begun.

When I was growing up in the 1980s, my dad was a sales rep, whose working life revolved around a beige Vauxhall Cavalier. The Cav had become known as the quintessential rep-mobile of the time: a worthy all-rounder, reliable, good on the motorway and fitted with modern features perfect for long-distance drivers, such as a radio cassette player and… not much else.