Don&rsquo;t worry, it&rsquo;s all under control, just keep going slowly and don&rsquo;t steer too much.&rdquo; These were the words of wisdom that came from my jovial driving instructor, and on the face of it, the advice seemed perfectly straightforward and logical. The problem was, I was in the driver&rsquo;s seat, at a seemingly impossible angle, with my door almost touching the side of an embankment; had it not been for my seat belt, I would have slid quietly out of the window, sideways.

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In this day and age, when we take for granted the fact that fossil fuels are the only means of powering our cars and bikes, it&rsquo;s easy to forget that during the dawn of motoring, over a hundred years ago, there was no certainty about how vehicles were going to be powered on a long-term basis. Ferdinand Porsche, bless his soul, gave the world some of the greatest fossil fuel powered cars of all time, but when the Beetle was but a twinkle in old Adolf&rsquo;s eye, Porsche built the world&rsquo;s first electric hybrid. If you visit the Ford museum in America, you will see cars there from the company&rsquo;s history that are powered by various sources, including electric vehicles. Gasoline, back when Karl Benz pioneered the gasoline powered car, could only be bought in small quantities at pharmacies, if you can believe it; clearly, the word was still out on the best way to power cars.

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The SL350 got me into a fair amount of trouble, you know. Friends called me after my school reunion and said, &ldquo;My child&rsquo;s asking my husband why we can&rsquo;t have a cool Transformer car like Pablo&rsquo;s. You&rsquo;re such a rascal!&rdquo; I have to say that I received all this with a smile on my face, partly because it was all said in jest, but mainly because I appeared to have achieved my objective &mdash; rock up to the reunion in the SL, create a bit of a stir, have a party and leave in a cloud of tyre smoke. This kind of out-there behaviour is highly unusual for me, I hasten to add &mdash; in any large gathering, you&rsquo;ll usually find me in a quiet corner, nursing a beverage and minding my own business. This, however, is the kind of car that makes even a wallflower like me want to preen a bit.

Pablo Chaterji

Pablo Chaterji

Page 2 - Pablo Chaterji

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School Cat