At the height of her political power, Margaret Thatcher is said to have remarked: “A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.” The quotation is likely apocryphal but the sentiment is not.
There were few better emblems of Thatcherite individualism than the car. On 29 October 1986, appearing giddy with happiness, the then Conservative prime minister cut the ribbon that opened the final stretch of the M25. When Thatcher’s funeral was held on 17 April 2013, Jeremy Clarkson, the country’s leading petrolhead, was fittingly among the mourners.
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