The red bonnet is about five feet high, the wheels coe up to your hips and it snorts and roars. Flames shoot from the open exhaust ports when you gun it, roasting anyone trying to pass on the nearside. It has four seven-and-a-half-inch pistons, two just-visible instruments, down near the pedals, and a handbrake and gear lever outside the body. You grip the wide steering wheel, inches from your chest, air pressure to the tank is pumped by a brass lever beneath the passenger’s legs, and the fuel cut-off is beneath the driver’s legs. Cubic capacity is about twenty-eight litres. For more than a century, it has been known as the Beast of Turin. It is in fact a Fiat S76. They made two in 1911 to break the world speed record, achieving it with 116mph over the flying mile at Saltburn Sands in Yorkshire. After a number of other...
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