And so, to lunch with a chap who had a D-type Jaguar in his garage. Oh no, I thought, he’s going to talk about it. You might think you know a bore. You may once have sat next to an accountant on a long-haul flight to Auckland. You’ve probably been to a tedious film or seen Emerson Lake & Palmer live. You may even have been on a coach tour of north Wales. But trust me on this, you do not understand the true meaning of tedium until you’ve had lunch with a fan of the D-type Jag.

You could put one of these people on Just a Minute and they’d be at it right through The Archers and the shipping forecast. They would keep going, like the Duracell bunny, until Nicholas Parsons died of starvation. An hour with D-type man makes Melvyn Bragg’s philosophy show on a Thursday morning look like Die Hard 3.

They speak about the people who built them and raced them as though you must know who they’re on about. “So Lofty said to Archie, and you know what Archie was like, I see Briggs Cunningham’s gone and done it again.”

It’s a weird sensation, as they move on to chassis numbers. A blend of hatred and absolute lethargy. You want to lean across the table and stab them in the eye with a fork because how dare they take up so much of your life, but you can’t because you feel all tired and drowsy. It’s like being hypnotised by Hitler.

Happily, from his point of view, the man who’d invited me for lunch didn’t talk about the D-type in his garage. He could have done. He could have told me it was the actual car that won Le Mans in Nineteen-Fifty-Twelve — well, when I say the actual car, I mean, it’s been rebuilt, but the gearbox is genuine. Well, when I say the gearbox, I don’t mean the cogs, but the casing is kosher. However, he didn’t do any of this. He just tossed me the key and asked if I’d like to go for a drive.

It started like a Spitfire. There was much cranking and priming to be done before the beast under the bonnet could be coaxed into a petrol-soaked fit of spluttering and coughing. It sounded like a heavy smoker waking up.

I was dimly aware as we belched in a Capstan full-strength haze through the village in search of some open roads that even if the door handle on this car had won Le Mans, it would be worth a million or more. And that was unnerving because very quickly I deduced that it had no brakes.

It also didn’t have a windscreen, which made progress extremely cold, or seatbelts, which sprinkled the experience with a garnish of fear. It did, however, have lots and lots of power — which meant it was extremely fast. How fast is hard to say, however, because it didn’t have a speedometer.

I therefore had no idea how quickly I was going through the bends. Such was the noise and vibration that if someone had said I’d gone through the last corner at 200mph, frankly, I’d have believed them.

But then, I also would have believed them if they’d said I’d gone through at 20. It’s hard to know when the car is mounting a full-frontal assault on every one of your senses. The sight of those gashes in the bonnet, the smell of the unburnt petrol, the taste of terror, the sound of thunder, the feel of a hurricane in your hair.

How, I wondered, could D-type man make this sound so excruciatingly dull. Who cares what Lofty said to Archie? Why am I bothered about the bloody thing’s chassis number? Or which bits of it were in the car that won at Le Mans? It was wonderful. I’ve driven any number of modern supercars but none is quite so thrilling as a D-type. Let me put it this way. In, say, a Porsche Carrera GT, it feels like you’re on a rollercoaster, sitting there soaking up the vivid acceleration and absorbing the g forces. In a D-type it feels exactly the same, except you have to do the steering. Using your own skill, you have to keep it on the rails.

You have no electronic driver aids, no traction control and no antilock brakes. The first indication that man and machine were no longer singing in harmony would come when the skinny crossply tyres started their descant screech. Followed in short order by a million-pound Prokofiev discord as you hit the hedge.

I didn’t care, though. I sat there in the slipstream grinning the grin of a man who’s spent 20 years motoring and was now doing something so much more exciting. I was driving.

And that brings me neatly on to the subject of this week’s column. The new Renault Mégane CC.

Like the D-type, this is supposed to enliven the chore of motoring. With the roof up, it’s a two-door 2+2 coupé. With it down, it’s an out and out, wind in the hair sports car. A D-type for the wash’n’go, soft living, electronic age.

Except it doesn’t work. In the very first page of the brochure, in huge letters, it says: “With Renault, the environment comes first. Always.”

What???!!! The whole point of a sports car is hedonism, the selfish pursuit of pleasure. You don’t care about the wellbeing of other road users. You don’t care about your children being buffeted and squashed in the back. You don’t even care about your hair. So why should you give a toss about the trees?

There’s another problem, too. Because Renault is also obsessed with safety, that means the CC weighs just slightly more than Brittany. Couple this with the eco-mental engine and you end up with the power of a Davy lamp.

I tested the top of the range 2.0 litre with an automatic gearbox and the damn thing barely moved. And the handling was even less exciting. If it were a drink, it would be a glass of water. From the tap, and served lukewarm. Honestly, comparing this to a D-type is like comparing a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 to a spot of waterskiing.

It’s not a sports car. It’s not even on nodding terms with the concept of sporty motoring. And yet I completely understand if you are rather taken with the idea of getting one.

It is very pretty, for instance, and I’ll admit that the electric glass roof does make a deal of sense if you live in Vandal Street, Vandlesville, Vandalshire. What’s more, even when it’s folded away, you are still left with a reasonable-sized boot.

Inside, you have all the toys you would expect, and a few you wouldn’t. Like keyless-go, which lets you get in and start the engine without a key. You also get a couple of seats in the back, although there is zero leg room if you have the front chairs pushed all the way back.

Best of all, though, are the prices, which start at just £16,513. Sure, for that, you only get a 1.6, which will be so slow it’ll almost certainly go everywhere backwards. But 16 grand for a convertible of any kind if good value. Sixteen grand for a car with an electric hard top is remarkable.

Peugeot, of course, does an eerily similar equivalent, called the 307CC. But I think the Renault is a better bet because while neither is nice to drive, the roof on the Mégane is glass, rather than metal, it’s prettier and it’s an incy wincy bit cheaper.

I could go on but I’d have to get into chassis numbers and what Patrick said to Andre. And as anyone with even a modicum of common sense knows, that would be boring. So let’s call it a day at this point and find out which airhead AA Gill’s taken out for dinner this week.

VITAL STATISTICS

Model: Renault Mégane CC
Engine type: Four-cylinder, 1998cc
Power: 136bhp @ 5500rpm
Torque: 141 lb ft @ 3750rpm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic, front-wheel drive
Fuel: 33.6mpg (combined)
Dimensions: CO2 201g/km
Top speed: 124mph
Acceleration: 0 to 62mph: 11.5sec
Price: £20,213
Verdict: Heavy and breathless but rather pretty nonetheless

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