HOWZAT

“Are you ill? Is that a stutter? What in the world are you talking about, man? Are you trying to tell me it costs £10,000?”

“Yes.”

“Right, then I’ll give you nine.”

“Nine, nine, nine, nine?”

“No. Nine, oh, oh, oh. On the basis that you must be desperate to hit some sort of January sales target, otherwise you wouldn’t be offering free insurance to a complete stranger who, for all you know, has a record as long as your arm of deliberately crashing cars, then setting fire to them and dumping them at sea.”

We settled on nine, five, oh, oh, I wrote a cheque on the spot, filled in the driver’s history on the proffered Ford insurance form and handed it back.

The salesman went white.

“You’ve really had three write-off accidents in two years?”

“You said, ‘No questions asked.’”

“But, sir, 127mph?”

“That’s two questions. One more and I walk.”

So I got my car for £9,500, and my free Ford insurance, and the next year, with 12 months of no-claims under my belt and a bit of creativity in the form-filling, it became possible to insure myself affordably off my own back. And six years on I see no reason to change up to anything smarter or faster.

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