Car Sick

Uxbridge, ULEZ, LTNs, Greenpeace stunts, 100 new carbon licenses, EVs, petro-funded media, algorithms, silos. This is a join-the-dots, knit-your-own blip. You can season it with your preferred mix of outrage, fear, cynicism, hope or despair

The motor car is our best friend and our worst enemy, inhabitant of our dreams and nightmares, symbol of freedom and instrument of coercion; our beloved killer

I tell myself I've seen through the veil and punctured the illusion, but when we walk into a posh Cotswold shop and this has pride of place, I'm still drawn to it - and I'm not the only man of a certain age taking pictures. The childhood hours racing Scalextric BRM and Vanwall come flooding back; Saturday afternoon telly with David Coleman and Murray Walker. You be Graham Hill and I'll be Jackie Stewart

I was told it's a Bugatti Type 35, so I've looked it up. Bugatti was Italian but his factory was in Alsace (Germany when he founded the company, but then France). This model was one of the most successful racing cars ever made. They were manufactured in the second half of the 1920s. Depending exactly which version it is (and I have no Idea), it could be worth anything from a few hundred thousand to several million

In 1927, two of the most important international races were won in a Type 35 by a man called Emilio Materassi - an Italian, born in the 19th century, who was a bicycle mechanic and bus driver, turned racing driver. In 1928, Materassi was driving a different car in the Italian Grand Prix, attempting to overtake a Type 35 on the straight at over 200km/h. He lost control of the car and drove into the grandstand. He was killed instantly and over 20 spectators also died - the worst accident ever to occur at a Grand Prix. Incredibly, the race was restarted, and was won by the Bugatti Type 35 involved in the crash. No Italian Grand Prix took place in 1929 or 1930. Dreams and nightmares