This year’s RTOTY was a pretty awesome affair for all concerned. We had some of the best metal on sale to play in. We had bendy, twisty Welsh roads and we had Batchelor’s wit to keep us giggling when the weather turned from bad to build-an-ark. Which it did.

Personally, my favourite of the bunch was the Aston Martin Virage, mostly because I really like Astons. And because there’s no shame in wanting British engineering to take front and centre.

The Aston is lovingly crafted in the UK. It’s very pretty. However, there was another example of British engineering on the fleet: The Caterham R400 Superlight.

Engineered in the middle of the last century and barely altered since, the Caterham offers drivers the opportunity to step back in time and learn how drivers used to combat constipation back in t’day.

‘It’s dated, noisy, rickety and designed for people with long legs and tiny bodies.’

I won’t mince my words – I hated the thing. It’s dated, noisy, uncomfortable, rickety and designed for people with long legs and tiny bodies. Cartoon characters, basically.

Before I got in, editor James Baggott told me: ‘This is most extreme thing you’ll ever drive. Full throttle will spin it.’ Oh good. And it’d just started raining. Time to dig out my dry cleaner’s number.

The drive to the photo location was long and rainy. The roof started leaking, which meant that not only was it raining outside, but inside as well. So I couldn’t see. Looking behind was tricky, too – the wing mirrors move with every bump (due to their being attached to cloth doors) and, thanks to a beard-spec four-point harness, you can’t use your eyes to look rearwards because you’re pinned in place.

Let’s face it, having a Caterham of any form to merely get from A to B is pretty pointless.

You can’t see anything, it takes ages to get in and out of it, in the wet it will try to kill you and the crash protection is the pink, squidgy bit behind the wheel.

But if ‘B’ is a sunny, empty Welsh B-road? Well… I can’t think of anything better.

Who is Alex Goy?

He‘s a motoring journalist with a lot to say. He also produces a brilliant podcast. Check it out by typingbit.ly/alexgoy into a browser