DOMINIC RYAN

THE first time it happened, I must confess an involuntary swear word passed my pursed lips. The second time it happened, only days later . . . well, let’s just say, the Rest And Be Thankful echoed to the sound of some rather peculiar instructions, all aimed at the startled occupants of a Dutch Winnebago.

Having a wing mirror smashed by an oncoming vehicle is the equivalent of having your ear flicked by a complete stranger. It comes right out of the blue and it’s enough to raise the hackles on the mildest-mannered Schnoodle.

Driving back to the cottage along the A83, with the second smashed glass pane rescued from the Tarmac but now jangling in a bag in the boot, not for the first time I found myself questioning the wisdom of driving a Porsche Cayenne. An SUV that’s more bigly and more braggadocious than n Donald Trump’s ego is perhaps not the best choice for Scotland’s highways.

When in 1725 General Wade began work on his network of military roads in the Scottish Highlands, they were built to a standard width of 18 feet, narrowing to a minimum of 15 feet for bridges.

As the years went by new roads got evenven narrower and by the late 1760s they werere being built to a maximum width of just 15 feet, this often narrowing to 12 feet. Although Thomas Telford later reverted to 18 feet in 1805, he certainly didn’t have in mind my 1939mm-wide Bavarian behemoth.

The truth is most modern cars continue to grow bigger while our rural roads are not getting any wider. The Ford Escort was 1570mm wide when launched in 1968: the Ford Focus is now 1823mm, sans mirrors. Family cars were usually around 4.5m long by the early 1990s but have stretched to 4.8m or more.

Anyone who uses an SUV to do the shopping run will know the problem of size is most evident when attempting to park.

The standard parking space in the UK is 4.8m in length by 2.4m in width – the latest models of the Land Rover Discovery, Audi Q7 and BMW X5 are all longer than 4.8m, while many smaller models have also ballooned.

The perfect example in this category is the Mini: the modern version of the city runaround has grown by a whopping 800mm in length over the 1959 original.

The latest Mini – should that be Maxi? – Countryman is so huge it looks as though it’s eaten several of its ancestors.

Before ordering another wing mirror, I’ve been investigating alternatives that might better suit Kintyre’s roads. I’ve no real need for a car made to ferry all of the von Trapps: in fact, as someone who barely grew up to be the height of nonsense, a smaller car makes sense on many levels.

A single-seater would not only be more frugal, it would be faster and more fun.

Ruling out anything with less than four wheels – my misadventures on bikes and trikes have been well documented in Drive – I’ve narrowed my choice to the one and only Lamborghini Egoista, a 5.2-litre, V10-engined, 600-horsepowered car that will turn heads without snapping mirrors.

I just need to find out if they do trade-ins on injured Cayennes.