The spirit of adventure – Eunos Roadster-style

CCW – to paraphrase a certain beer advertisement– doesn’t do shopping trips, but if we did, they’d be the best in the world.

We love turning the simple business of popping out to pick up a few things into proper petrolhead adventures, even if it’s on the flimsiest of pretexts. When we ran out of cheese to go with our biscuits in team meetings, for example, we took our £500 Ford Puma to the Yorkshire Dales to stock up on Wensleydale. So when the Simister household’s bottle of single malt finally ran out earlier this summer, we didn’t think twice about venturing 500 miles into the Scottish Highlands to find a replacement.

In the end, my Mazda Eunos Roadster was joined by two other classics – an MGB GT V8 and a TVR Chimaera – and our, ahem, shopping trip turned into two of the best days of driving I’ve ever had. The Mazda’s beautifully balanced underpinnings meant I could enjoy mile after mile of deserted roads without ever venturing near a speed limit or annoying anyone, while the lowrevving, easily accessible torque of the V8s in the TVR and MG meant that they weren’t far off on fuel economy.

With the exception of the moment when the Mazda’s low undersides met the heavily rutted forest track heading up to our overnight accommodation – to an accompanying painful scraping noise – the 27-year-old didn’t flinch once during its three-day adventure.

It’s by the far the best drive I’ve had in 2017, and I can’t wait for another excuse to head up there. Come to think of it, that bottle I bought is looking a little low…