A trip all the way to Reading in the over-congested south-east, merely to drive not a new car but a new engine in a familiar car, is not something guaranteed to excite me.

But having returned from the launch of the Fiat 500 TwinAir, I think I might just have been in on something a little bit historic.

The TwinAir is not merely some marketing-led twist on the Multijet/Multiair call-it-what-you-will names that Fiat plasters on its engines these days.

Before mobile phones were invented people wouldn't dream of writing in text slang, so why do those born in a 'pen and paper' generation insist on trying to be 'cool'?

How many times when growing up did your parents lecture you about pronunciation should you ever start sounding like a character out of Eastenders? Why is it these same people will happily bash the words "Wanna meet 4 a T or C?" into their oversized Nokia 3310 when they mean "Do you have time to meet up for a tea or coffee?"

At the weekend it was my girlfriend who received a 'cool' text message from her mum. It read: "Wat u up 2?" At the time I was taking her for a drive around the South Wales coast in the new Renault Megane Coupé-Cabriolet, so she wrote back (with a bit of encouragement from me): "At the beach topless!"

“Compact SUV” is a broad church these days with a pretty diverse membership.

As companies try to cover all niches these ‘crossovers’ seek to offer, more or less successfully, both SUV and Estate/MPV attributes.

All of (lower-medium) motoring life is here – from cynically jacked-up hatchbacks to quite substantial 4x4 machines which can actually head off beyond the tarmac . . . and cope.

Never judge a book by its cover, don't get too excited or you'll only be disappointed and don't run before you can walk.

All valuable lessons taught to me by my mother.

That other well-known phrase 'always listen to your mum' is a lesson I obviously paid no attention to because when the Civic Type R arrived on my doorstep on the eve of its decommissioning by Honda, I'd had the last three years to pre-empt what I was going to write: "Super fast, super fun, but largely impracticable for more than two people."

The problem being I have always wanted a Civic Type R.

Volkswagen has made the Transporter a ‘premium’ van – quite a trick, the light commercial vehicle market is vicious.

The number sporting alloys, lights, roof rails and tints (“privacy glass”) shows a car-like customer base.

Kombi (part cargo/part passenger plus windows) or Caravelle (full ‘MPV’ for a group and kit) go distinctly up-market.  The California is the cherry on the icing on the cake.

Evolution not revolution, that is how Suzuki describes its latest generation Swift.

And why should it drastically change a winning formula? 1.65 million people have found homes for a Swift since it was first launched in 2005.

After all Russell Hobbs has made a fortune out of selling toasters over the years, yet the toaster simply evolves into a better version of its predecessor, it doesn't all of a sudden require to be hung from a ceiling, or float in water.

The Peugeot 3008 is full of surprises.

Firstly I didn't expect a lifestyle vehicle to drive and handle as well as this one does and secondly it has more space inside it than I ever imagined.

In fact it was the reason the Peugeot 3008 Sport HDi 150 handled so well that I discovered how much leg room there was behind the drivers seat - I got a little excited on the mountain roads of Snowdonia and my mobile phone slipped out of my pocket and ended up underneath my seat. Don't you just hate it when that happens?