Matt Prior: you don't have to own an Alfa to be an enthusiast

I don’t think there’s anything else I spend 250 hours a year doing that I wouldn’t consider myself pretty good at by now. There is a hive of people who spend a large portion of their waking days absorbed by cars and driving, and people want to tell them they don’t really like cars because they’ve never bought an Italian one? 

I don’t buy it. I don’t really care how you enjoy cars, I don’t care if you enjoy driving only because it lets you listen to a podcast and pick your nose. So long as you get the tiniest piece of enjoyment out of being behind the wheel, congratulations, or perhaps sorry, you are somebody who likes cars. 

Twisted: method in the madness

Fun to read my colleague Ricky Lane’s verdict on the latest Twisted Defender a few weeks ago. I like Land Rover Defenders despite their limitations and I like what Twisted does with them. And, yes, I know they’re expensive, but a lot of hours go into them and, at any price, a Defender is not exactly a rational purchase. 

Twisted’s decision to buy some, though, was a bit more rational: it spent £7.5 million stockpiling 240 of them before the car went out of production in January 2016, and it has 80 left. 

It’s divvying those up into two different series, dubbed ‘Make History’ and ‘Remake History’. The Remake ones, 44 of them, will be modified in a way that “pays homage to the history of the original”, including inspiration from early Series Land Rovers. They go into ‘production’, so to speak, on 29 January, three years to the day since series production stopped. And the remaining 36 Make History versions will go to existing customers with, presumably, ever more bonkers bespoke modifications.