Road trip PortAventura by Polestar

THE Bay of Biscay was mercifully calm for our 24hour Brittany Ferries crossing to Spain. My friend Ana is a feeble seafarer so took powerful remedies which, as usual, knocked her out. This meant that me and the kids were free to watch the full range of movies and pig out at the eat-yourself-silly captain’s buffet table.

Which meant we all woke up smiling in Bilbao, ready for our epic mountainous meander across Spain to that ultimate children’s adventure playground, PortAventura.

But first let me take you on our little journey out of Cantabria and up to the bull running citadel of Pamplona. Then to the nearby fortified village of Olite, where the kings of Navarra once ruled with a rod of gold. From Olite the plains of Spain fan out towards Aragon and Catalunya and the rest of the magnificent Iberian peninsula, leaving behind the Pyrenees and Basque country.

Pamplona is only an hour from Bilbao, hardly time to warm the engine of the Polestar, Volvo’s most powerful road-going 2.0-litre four-cylinder “twincharged” brute with charm. The newer version boasts 362bhp, up from the 350bhp of the straightsix three-litre fuel guzzling older version, and is one of the world’s pokiest cars of its size (0-60mph in 4.5 seconds).

We loved it, Pierre-Marie especially. Ana had the impression it was terrifically fast but seemed unable to see the speedo, which is always an advantage.

I’d previously driven it alone over the deserted roads of the Cevennes mountains in France’s Massif Central, where Robert Louis Stevenson once famously went travelling with a donkey, Modestine.

I cannot remember when I last had such fun behind a wheel. Travels with a Polestar in the Cevennes would be a great book to ENERGY company ScottishPower and car dealer Arnold Clark have joined forces in a bid to make buying electric vehicles hassle-free – their aim is to offer a ‘package deal’ that includes not only the car itself but a home charger and access to a green energy tariff.

The Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme will mean motorists can buy or lease an electric vehicle from Arnold Clark. They are then offered the choice of using the UK’s “smallest fast-charging point”.

The charger is offered on condition users take up a ScottishPower’s 100% renewable electricity tariff. Customers will also have access to the ScottishPower App. This will allow charging to be controlled via a smart write but it would probably the world’s shortest, as this vast area was condensed into a blur.

So what’s it like hoofing an engine that is both turbo-charged and super-charged, and howls to be driven faster? A terrifying