Enough of supercars - let’s be a little more practical. In England through the seventies the dream car that was within reach was the Triumph Dolomite Sprint. It wasn’t much to look at, the body originating from a Michelotti design of the sixties, but it was inoffensive at least and packed some grunt in the engine compartment.

Powered by a two liter slant-4 engine with 16 valves, the Sprint was quicker than anything in its price range and had the added advantage of four doors, allowing one to plead, “But dear, it’s a family saloon!” That didn’t stop it getting to 115 mph as its top speed and to 60 mph in 8.5 seconds, however.

That was good enough to beat its contemporaries, the BMW 2002 and the Alfa Romeo 2000, both of which would make a bigger dent in your wallet. The Sprint became the dream of the boy racers who did not want to go the more common Ford Escort RS1600 route.

And the real racers picked up on it too, lowering the suspension to improve handling and coaxing even more power from its advanced engine. For many years the Leyland Team Sprints were a familiar sight in National saloon car races.

The Sprint approaches classic status in Britain now, the last one having rolled off the production line in 1979. Triumph are long gone, swallowed up in the Leyland debacle that eventually emerged as Rover Cars, but the Sprint lives on in the memory as one of the most desirable all-rounders ever built.