You can do whatever you like when you’re reviewing a car, because the cultural standard was set by Jeremy Clarkson. You’re almost expected to ding it. I once took a whole hubcap off a Toyota Hilux and pretended I’d done it off-road on a caper, when in fact I’d backed into a pillar in a car park. The Hilux was somewhat longer than I realised; watch out for that.
This being the case, I’d been doing the job for years without a moment’s anxiety, not even when I took a Ferrari California T on the Isle of Wight ferry and its internal alarm thought it was being car-trafficked. And then I found myself in a Fiat Spider on a winding Italian road (lovely little roadster built off the Mazda platform) and I’ve never been so stressed in my goddam life.
