Ford of Europe has a problem on its hands. Despite class-leading products across a range of key car market sectors (Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo for example) - and top spot in the UK - it is in the red and sales heading south. Last year’s loss was $1bn apparently. The answer? SUVs – a whole new line-up of them.

Not the whole answer, it should be noted – a heavily renewed Fiesta range arrives at the beginning of 2013 and the next Mondeo is on the horizon (although the company recently announced it would not appear until 2014 because of the closure of its plant in Genk, Belgium). These follow the recently launched Fiesta-based, baby MPV-like B-Max with clever sliding doors.

It was five years ago that I mistakenly went to a classic car auction and raised my hand at the wrong time, burdening myself with a slice of British automotive history powered by a lump of iron Detroit muscle.

Come to think of it, 7.2 litres is probably as big as engines got in postwar British production cars.

The fuel bills were eye-watering, and although it had never let me down (I had called out the AA once in five years of ownership), the Jensen SP was now in its 40th year and would probably become more difficult to maintain.

I never expected to keep it five years so it was perhaps more surprising that I hadn't put it up for sale before now. Within a week of advertising it was gone. A gentleman who already owned two royal blue Jensen SPs and decided he needed a third, giving him a 1.3% share of all the SPs ever built.

“Mon Mam Cymru” – “Mon the Mother of Wales”, is how Anglesey is described in Welsh.

Its better known 20th century offspring however is the Land Rover.

When Rover Managing Director Spencer Wilks visited Chief Engineer brother Maurice at their estate there in 1947, he asked what he would do when the ex-Army Jeep he had wore out.  “Try to find another one” he said, “there’s just nothing like it …"