In a previous blog I wrote that I had only ever travelled in cattle class on a plane. I have now remembered that that wasn’t true. Sorry.
Many years ago, thanks to trickle-down theory, I “inherited” a trip to a classic car rally in Germany. In the way that these things happen, it was offered to the biggest of bigwigs in Haymarket, who couldn’t do it, passed through a few echelons of senior and middle management, then the bloke who ran the canteen (we had one back then) and finally washed up on the shores that it probably should have beached itself on in the first place.
If you are wondering, the main difference between business class (it wasn’t anything as fancy as first class) on this particular short-haul flight was metal cutlery, an option on a second bread roll and a better-looking, more polite stewardess. And of course the smug feeling of being special or important that people who are used to such privileges simply don’t get.
Back to the event in question: it was the Silvretta Classic in the (mainly Austrian) Alps. It was backed by German magazine Motor Klassik, which we were sort of partners with at the time (it’s very complicated). BMW and Jaguar both took fleets of cars and I, fresh as a daisy after my relaxed business class flight (very important and special, me), was parachuted into one of the former, BMW’s own gorgeous 507, 3168ccs of V8-engined wonderfulness.