As anyone with an elderly car will tell you, the trip to the MOT station is usually full of trepidation at what the uncaring inspector might find. No point telling him what a great drive your classic is, or that you paid just ΂£100 for it 30 years ago (and it's now still only worth ΂£100 thanks to the recent classic price crash). It's as if it's his job to keep it off the road if at all possible.

At least rust is less of a problem with the Lotus thanks to the glassfibre body, though certain parts of the chassis and suspension are prone if neglected. But it's the handbrake that's always the worry with Elans at MOT time. It's a horribly ineffective device; Colin Chapman seemed to have run out of good ideas when it came to penning an effective handbrake. So hidden away amongst the beautifully crafted rear wishbones is a dreadful mix of rods, cables and mechanical pincers squeezing the long-discontinued pads onto the rear discs with all the enthusiasm of a flat battery.

The best way to get enough braking force to pass an MOT is to actually crank the brakes into the 'on' position with a spanner just before arriving at the garage, then, once you've passed, take the precious pads out again until MOT time next year. Seeing the brake-test dial as it registered a response to the handbrake being applied by the MOT tester that afternoon was like watching my kids win at the school sports day earlier in the week. Armed with the prized MOT certificate (showing only 800 miles had been covered since March '98) it was now a matter of getting the car taxed and we'd be sorted.

It has always annoyed me that my Elan missed out on road tax exemption by being built just a few weeks into 1973 so the full ΂£165 is due. What I didn't realise was that cars under 1549cc get charged much lower road tax these days ΂- until the helpful lady at the post office pointed it out, just after I'd written 1558cc in the appropriate box on the taxing form. Remarkably, my engine's going to shrink over the next year, in fact by around 10cc.

Even though the two cars are separated by nearly 30 years, the Lotus DNA is still easy to spot ΂- for example in the malfunctioning fuel gauges on both cars. The Elan always needing a sharp tap on the dial to give you a true reading, and you need at least 2000rpm to produce enough volts to power it up.

The misfire on the first trip up to the office was thankfully cured by a new set of plugs that evening but the squeaky steering needs further investigation. It could be dried-out swivel-joints on the front kingpins; there are grease nipples down there, you know (anyone remember them?) and they demand HP140 gear oil every 1000 miles.

Fortunately the other thing the two cars share is astonishing on-road performance. The Elan snorts through its twin 40 Dellortos in a way that must have shocked back in the '70s and it still feels genuinely quick today, being so narrow you can use different, faster, lines through twisting B-roads to the point that I wished I'd got it out of the garage sooner. That was until it rained.

Now, this was the whole point of the exercise. Yes, it had a roof, but what I didn't know was that the wipers had decided to pack up post-MOT. You only find out, of course, when it's raining. Even after much fumbling under the dash the best I could achieve was the semi-Touring Car look you see in the photo ΂- one solitary 40 degree arc in 45 miles of torrential summer rain. Don't you just love old cars?