Other journalists get a bit sniffy when considering the role of motoring correspondents. "In the pay of the car companies" is the usual slur. I can reveal that, in a brief career as a motoring writer, I was bribed only once. It was by Toyota, in Portugal.
Toyota, which makes the best-built cars in the world - see, Nagoya, I do not forget - was launching a new model. The Irish motoring press were billeted in a hotel of fading grandeur in Estoril, which is to Lisbon what Salthill is to Galway. Over dinner, our hosts handed each of us a card containing three questions. If we answered correctly, we would win about £50 worth of escudos to fund a night of excess in Estoril's casino. I recall the most difficult question was: "What is the capital of Portugal?"
Regular lubrication
Nobody failed the test and we all proceeded to the casino. It was far from chemin de fer that I was raised, and I quickly lost half my stake. I cut my losses, as they say, and spent the rest on white port - a delightful drink, much superior to most sherries.
Drink, it must be admitted, features prominently in car launches. Fiat is the market leader in this regard since Italians consider regular lubrication to be essential to the smooth functioning of any engine. After lunch in the vague vicinity of Lake Como, I was driving back to Turin in a Lancia Stratos. My co-driver had advised me earlier that he would not drive on the wrong side of the road despite the fact that all the Italians did. In short, I was on my own.
The Lancia Stratos was a low-slung sports model. I felt like Fangio - all that power at my command and my backside only inches away from the road beneath. On reaching Turin, there was a problem. How did we find the hotel Principe di Savoia, where we were staying? Imagine an Italian arriving in Dublin along the Naas Road and trying to find the Shelbourne.
My co-driver had taken a Ph.D. in inertia and refused even the most rudimentary attempts at navigation. I drove slowly down a wide boulevard, trying to spot signs that would take me to the city centre. As I drove, I saw a man ahead who was leaning into the cab of a Volkswagen van, chatting to the driver. I thought I left enough space between the Stratos and the man, but I was mistaken. The car touched him on the buttocks and catapulted him into the cabin of the van.
Foolishly, I stopped the car and went back to apologise. "Scusi, scusi," I said, using up most of my Italian. The offended man was momentarily speechless, but then gave vent to a Mount Etna-scale eruption of anger. Amid the invective, I heard the word "tedeschi". I knew from Hollywood that this was the Italian for Hun. "I am not German," I roared back at him.
Hotel key
A police car arrived on the scene. The Italian complained volubly. A policeman asked me for identity. I showed him my hotel key, the only form of identity I had. "Ah," he said to the offended party, "they're staying at the Principe di Savoia. It's owned by Fiat. They cannot be touched." Motoring writers on the Continent are a serious bunch, knowledgeable about the combustion engine and catalytic conversion. The Irish are more fun-loving, to the point that on one memorable occasion a newspaper sent a man who could not drive to test-drive a new Jaguar. The regular motoring correspondent could not go to Woburn Abbey, where the test was taking place, and invited a colleague to go instead. "But I can't drive," said the colleague. "Not a problem," said the motoring correspondent. "There are always two to a car. You can be a passenger all the time." Except that, on this occasion, Jaguar had decided each journalist should have a car of his own.
This forced the hand of the non-driver. "Actually, I can't drive," he told the PR man from British Leyland.
"How frightfully Irish," the PR man guffawed. "Now, be a good chap and get into the car." It took some time before the PR man realised that this particular participant in his car test really could not drive. Some say Anglo-Irish relations have not been right since.
By the pool
We launched the VW Polo in Sardinia. The Costa Smeralda was much favoured by the car companies. Owned by the Aga Khan, the area had a number of luxury hotels - essential for motoring correspondents - and the roads were almost free of traffic as the locals could not afford cars. I was to drive with a fellow Irish journalist. After breakfast, I went looking for him. I found him reclining by the pool in the Cala di Volpe hotel, a lady by his side. "Drive on your own today," he hissed. It turned out the lady was an heiress to the Ford family fortune.
The journalist in question is still employed on a newspaper in Middle Abbey Street, so we must assume the courtship was not a success.
BMW launched the 7-series in Bavaria. We over-nighted in a hotel near Berchtesgaden. "Let's find Hitler's eyrie," said my co-driver. "How do we do we go about that?" I wanted to know.
"I'll ask at the tourist office." Alas, nobody in the Berchtesgaden tourist office knew where Hitler's eyrie was. Nor, indeed, had anybody heard of Hitler.