20 June

Top Gear changed the motoring enthusiast community into a mocking, nasty movement attacking a whole variety of social groups. As well as stifling innovation by going to war on everything that isn’t gas-guzzling, usually ludicrously expensive, cars. The world of the British lad. Really at war with any challenge to the rich status quo. (With James May being the often mocked exception.) Who remembers Peter Wherrett’s Torque, from the 1970s-80s? You can still watch it on YouTube. What motoring enthusiasm used to be like, when it was run by adults. Calm, kind, informative, fascinating. Grown up. Wherrett was a skilled racing driver, vastly knowledgeable but also capturing motoring in many more dimensions. I remember even stories on how to minimise your fuel use by skilled use of the throttle. The sort of thing the Top Gear kidults would mock every day of the week. Wherrett lived out his last years in a small community, as a woman. A fascinating person to the end.