21-Year-Old-Me's mouth just dropped open.
Alright 21-Year-Old-Me, calm down. You can't fill up that mini-metro with 99p/litre fully-leaded petrol forever, you little donut.
The idea of hands-free driving has been around for a while. Imagine lanes of traffic, all moving at automated, regulated speed - there are no jams, no road-rage, no pile-ups - just happy passengers getting where their programmable pod is configured to take them: chatting, reading, surfing the net, and all without the stress of the road. I think it is the future.
21-Year-Old-Me is unimpressed, of course, along with all the other petrol heads. The truth is I'm just not in that zone any more. I've switched sides and joined the nerds. I think cars are useful tools for getting you and your stuff from here to there, for escaping and returning and collecting and depositing - but that is really all they are these days - tools - at least for us ordinary mortals.
Pipe down, Clarkson.
For a start, there's the finance. New cars are expensive to buy and difficult to maintain. Men in shiny suits no longer sell you throbbing beasts of chrome, rubber and engine oil; they sell you paperwork - finance deals that just happen to have a car thrown in to sweeten the deal. And guess what? That little sweetener happens to look like every other little sweetener driving out of the dealership.
Surely even the petrol heads have to admit that new cars are gradually morphing into each other? Surely, there will come a day when they all look the same, all of them identical pods: curved, sleek lines, shapely headlamps and touchscreen dashboards - hopefully without the old-fashioned idea of a steering wheel, and the bombastic lout telling you how to use it.
I said, pipe down.
Buying a second-hand car is a better idea, I think. I bought a car in High Wycombe back in 2008, after trying to navigate my way through the feelings of complete incompetence I get with an open bonnet. I know so little about cars that I feel like an easy target for people who know more. It felt like pure luck (and the handy advice of my friend, Martin, who came with me) that I eventually did choose a car that lasted for five years without too much trouble. It could just have easily been two cars welded together... or a well-painted rustbucket, powered by a hamster in a wheel.
I'm getting old. I've also found myself consistently less troubled by the boy racers who pull alongside me at the traffic lights, revving their engines. Their lego cars glisten with super-wax and the faint blue aura of neon headlamps. Usually, their black, tinted windows wobble with the sound of a thumping stereo and growling twin steel exhausts. The lights change, they slam down the accelerator and squeal off down the road like coloured lawnmowers in a game of MarioKart.
Why the rush? Why the stress? They'll be a thing of the past, come the Google revolution. Chill out lads, jump in, enjoy the scenery.
That's another reason why I don't enjoy driving as much these days - the scenery, the life, the rest of the world! When was the last time you heard the trees whispering and rustling in the warmth of a summer breeze? What about the smile of an old boy as he doffs his flat cap as you let him pass, or the young lady who smiles when she overhears you whistling? And then there's that glorious thinking time - the long, strolling minutes to think it all through without constantly worrying about speed cameras and flashing lights, pedestrians and parking enforcements?
Of course, the Google Car won't solve that problem. It might just take some of the zippety-zip out of life though - plus it'll spell the end of Top Gear... and that can't be a bad thing.
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