So there I was, loitering with intent at Chee's desk... To be honest, I didn't feel too guilty as I'd got a couple of trips tailor-made for the Rangey: a journey to Cornwall, shooting with my father and a friend, followed by a drive with Harry to Lancashire for another day's shooting, this time with Peter Wheeler (yes, that one).

With a combined total of more than 1000 miles of motorways and A-roads to negotiate, the Rangey's effortless power, relaxed demeanour and top-spec comfort made it the perfect choice, the equal of any premium luxury saloon, but also able to cope with the off-road twist at each destination.

After Harry's tyre-slashing off-road efforts in Scotland (087), I confess to being nervous of punctures (the 20in rims mean the low-profile sidewalls are vulnerable to 'pinching'). How ironic then that the only tyre trouble I encountered was on-road, not off, a hidden rock protruding from the edge of a narrow Cornish lane managing to split the nearside front tyre. Fortunately our friend was ex-McLaren pit crew, but swapping the punctured rim for a (fortunately) full-size spare still took a good 15 minutes of heaving and swearing. (Thanks, George.) The swearing resumed a few weeks later when we got the bill for a new tyre: an eye-watering £315 including VAT and fitting.
Thankfully the Lancashire trip was less eventful, although an amusing incident came in the form of a mobile phone conversation between Harry and Gordon Murray, who'd called for a chat. These things happen when you travel with Harry... Anyway, smalltalk ensued until Harry happened to mention what we were driving, at which point his Sony Ericsson shuddered to some Murray vitriol - at one stage GM even threatened to hang up!

Second most amusing event was arriving in Lancashire to find that Peter Wheeler (another vociferous advocate of powerful, lightweight sports cars) had recently purchased - yep, you guessed it - a Vesuvius Orange Range Rover Sport. On hearing Murray's reaction he simply said, 'Fitness for purpose'. He's spot-on, for while there's no doubt that the McLaren F1 is supremely fit for the purpose of carrying three people at 240mph, having experienced the breadth of the Rangey's rapid, comfortable, characterful on-road ability and its go-anywhere off-road appetite, it's hard to see how it could meet its engineering brief any better.