Calling all Scottish petrolheads

NOT SO long ago I got my first invite to a fully-fledged car launch. Champion commitments meant I couldn’t have taken two days, but it was a tempting offer – flights, accommodation, grub and the chance to drive a new car.

Most tantalisingly of all, it would have offered me the chance to put a car through its paces in a place I’ve always wanted to drive. The Highlands of Scotland.

Having lived just over the border in Carlisle for three years, I’ve ventured into Scotland on a string of occasions, most notably in 2007 when I used the Caledonian Sleeper as part of a feature to travel the length of Britain using public transport alone. I’ve also sampled some of Scotland from behind the wheel, but thrashing a Renault 5 to Dumfries and back is only scratching the surface.

Anyone who read my piece on Skyfall will already know the remoter bits of Scotland are a wonderfully scenic place to take a car, but with places like Glencoe and Aviemore being a long, long way from the Champion’s circulation area and petrol currently at a crippling 138.9p a litre you can understand why I’m a little reluctant to follow in Bond’s footsteps and take my own Sixties GT car on the same journey.

That’s why I’d like to go all Guardian on you and crowdsource a solution; what is the best, and most affordable, way to get your motoring kicks in the Highlands?

Taking your own car is the easiest and most convenient way to do it, obviously, but aside from the wear ‘n’ tear there’s the hours on the motorway and the petrol involved. As much as I’d love to see the shot of my MGB GT overlooking a misty loch, it’d take eleven hours and £150’s worth of premium unleaded just to get there and back.

Nor is hiring a car for the long trip up especially appealing either – sure, you’d save big time on fuel and it’d be a much comfier, quieter and less stressful drive, but when you’re presented with somewhere like the A82 as it winds its way towards Fort William you want to be something a little more memorable than a Chevrolet Aveo. A stage as grand as the Highlands ought to be experienced in something a little more agile!

The romantic writer in me loves the idea of boarding the Deerstalker as it screeches into Crewe at midnight, sleeping as it chugs its way through the Scottish countryside, and hiring a car at Fort William, but it’s a lot of money when you risk being lumbered with a diesel Vauxhall Corsa. Another option, until not so long ago, would have been to fly up to Inverness Airport, but the Liverpool flight I used to get back five years ago is long gone and Easyjet have dropped their Manchester flights.

So I’m stumped, haunted by an appealing idea which sounds like great full-throttle fun but which, thanks largely to the price of petrol, I’d struggle to do on a budget. That’s why I’d love to hear from anyone who’s ever ventured up there to find out what’s the best way to experience a stunning stretch of the British Isles.

The Dales, the Lakes, Snowdonia, the windy lanes of Cornwall and the Cat and Fiddle Run – I’ve driven them all and loved every mile. I’d love to add the Highlands to that list.

Life On Cars readers are also reminded that the PetrolheadPub Quiz takes place in Southport on Sunday, November 18. If you’d like to take part, it costs just £2 per person and starts at 7.30pm...

Bond's Aston Martin DB5 looks stunning in Skyfall

YOU always know from the amount of secret agent-themed ads on telly when there’s a new Bond blockbuster on the way.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past year you’ll already know that 007’s latest adventure is called Skyfall, and will feature Daniel Craig in his third outing as the suave secret agent, once you’ve got through Adele crooning her way through the theme song. I also freely admit I’m very nearly as much of a Bond nut as I am a car nut – even though I’ll enjoy pretty much any movie which features explosions and car chases, I always reserve a particular fondness for the Bond films.

But what’s really whetting my appetite for the new one isn’t a sultry sidekick or a spectacular storyline. It’s those publicity shots of Bond’s DB5 on the spy’s trip to the Scottish Highlands.

The DB5 has always been a fabulously good looking thing but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the quintessential Bond car in a more breathtaking setting. There’s a moody, bleak beauty to the scenery while the car obviously gives the shot a very retro feel; the classic English GT eating up the miles through the stunning Scottish landscapes.

In fact, that’s pretty much what director Sam Mendes went for, and told national media earlier this year: “I felt it was a thematic thing. It's definitely about the old and the new. And there's something about the last part of the movie which deliberately, very consciously, could have taken place in 1962.”

The thing I love most of all about these pictures is that, in much the same way the Daniel Craig movies have tried to take Bond back to basics, devoid of CGI and gadgets, so these shots take the DB5 away from being a cheesy automotive cliché and remind car nuts what it really is and what it does best; it’s a classy, handcrafted GT car, designed to wind its way over mountain passes in speed and comfort.

Forget the race against the Ferrari F355 in Goldeneye – this is what a classic Aston is all about. Fingers crossed then, with Mr Mendes appearing to do the DB5 justice in these shots, that’ll he take good care of 007 himself in the new film.

Skyfall hits the cinemas later this month. I, for one, can’t wait.

Celebrate your Scottishness with a numberplate. Or not

IT is, in case you haven't been watching the news, a great time to be Scottish.

Sean Connery, the Scottish Roger Moore, once said he'd live to see his homeland regain its independence in his lifetime and lots of us down here laughed and gingerly pointed out that, of course, he lives in LA. But now the SNP have won their majority north of the border and it'd be silly to bet against the prospect of them holding their long-promised referendum on the subject. James Bond himself could yet live to see the day when motorists get past Carlisle and are asked to show their passports at Border Control.

Naturally, the DVLA's chosen to celebrate by offering all true Scots what they've always wanted; a personalised numberplate which spells out WA11 ACE which - provided you don't live in Wigan with a dog called Gromit - is supposed to be the ultimate expression of Cool Caledonia for your car. Only it isn't. It's a vanity numberplate which will make you look like a berk.

Obviously it's meant to read out “Wallace” but it doesn't; what it actually says is “Wa Eleven Ace”, and it's the same story with all personalised plates in this country. One of my own favourites was a Toyota Land Cruiser proudly wearing “G1 LTY” upon its plates, which if you're a gangland crook presumably means “guilty” but is completely unintelligible to anyone else.

I have a set I use at classic car shows, but they're only a £15 bodge job only to stop Internet saddos from cloning my car details if photos of my pride and joy make it into cyberspace. To stump up silly prices for the real, road legal deal - and in the case of WA11 ACE you'll get stung for £2,000 by chaps in Swansea - just shows you have more money than sense.

You can, for instance, pay £10,000 to have 15 0 on your numberplate, but to do that you'd have to dismiss a) buying a brand new Fiesta, b) buying any number of classic cars which would impress the ladies far more or c) giving a substantial amount of cash you clearly don't need to charity. American vanity plates are fine - you can get anything you like for $45, as long as nobody else has it - but in Britain it's a bonkers scheme. It is motoring merchandise gone mad.

To be able to justify having WA11 ACE on your car you would have to be not only a diehard Scot but obscenely rich and so cast-iron cool that a personalised plate won't damage your street cred.

Or Sean Connery.