If you follow the motoring press or social media you can be forgiven for thinking that only supercars can offer the way to motoring Nirvana. The latest multi million Rand supercar has people cross referencing specifications and statistics that they’ll never experience ,financially or otherwise.

An automobile is an appliance to most, a means to an end, a tool to get you about with the minimum of fuss and inconvenience. Others are more enthusiastic about automobiles and see each journey as a reprieve from reality , a way to temporarily switch off from the everyday mundane and immerse in the freedom it brings.

My greatest drives have all been in everyday cars, a personal festival of the unexceptional in the motoring world. A trip to Swartkops AFB to attend the Cobra club concourse was dispatched in an early Mazda Mx5 complete with rorty exhaust and ill sealing canvas top. The trip along the Krugersdorp highway at legal speeds sitting very close to the ground whilst getting windswept from every angle was sheer enjoyment, so much so that on the return trip I deviated off the highway and took charge down the myriad of secondary roads back to Roodepoort, lining up braking points, apexes and exit points on deserted late Saturday afternoon roads. This was done in a car far from perfect, faded red paint and noisy hydraulic lifters dominated, the winking headlights that failed to realise that going up or down at the same time was the preferred course of action being a secondary matter and easily solved by not driving after dark.

Another memorable drive was about as unexceptional as you can get. An early winter evening run through the Johannesburg CBD to collect parts from a supplier that had been machined for an old Datsun I was working on in a first generation Volvo S40 T4. The return trip through the unsociable areas of Bertrams, Doornfontein and Joubert Park was briskly dispatched with the sunroof open and heater on listening to Fleetwood Mac singing about going your own way and witches called Rhiannon, to the accompanying stares at each robot from the vice orientated night prowlers that have unfortunately come to characterise the inner Joburg CBD. The Volvos smoky turbocharged four cylinder still managed to muster up most of the horsepower intended by the engineers at Gothenburg and had little trouble transferring them to the the grimy streets of the CBD.

So, to sum up. If you are an enthusiast, no matter what you drive, get out of suburbia for a few hours and enjoy yourself. No rules or pack drill, just get out and drive.