hat a year…We’re in the historical part of ‘leading steps’ to World War 3, Boris Johnson is the first Prime Ribroast Minister to be questioned under police caution, Irish fishermen taking on Putin’s warships, English Fishermen taking on French fish, BMWs have nostrils now and just the entire Prince Andrew thing. But that’s not important, what’s important is I’ve just renewed my car insurance for the TVR which means I’ve had it for a year - and knowing TVR’s reputation you may be assuming I’m writing this under a bridge because I had to sell my house to fix the rust.

But I’m not, it’s currently on charge ready for February when it becomes my daily driver. In one year, the humble Chimaera’s not let me down once, even after John and Craig took it around Bowland at warp factor six. It’s been relatively unremarkable in terms of problems, boring almost. The only thing to have gone wrong is the spark plug extenders (bits that plug into the spark plugs to stop the leads frying on the perilously close exhaust manifolds) have all cracked resulting in a misfire and downed performance and when it rains my toes get wet.

Like all classic owners, I used the winter break to tinker with the car. I’ve fitted new HT leads that have angled heads to do away with the stupid plug extenders, some titanium condoms to go over them to stop the leads frying on the aforementioned perilously close exhaust manifolds, and put on a new intake elbow in preparation for some inlet modifications in the summer. It already has a 5.0 upgrade camshaft so that must mean the pistons in my car are pocketed, making it a late 4.0 high-compression engine without the HC symbol of earlier ones.

With the inlet modified the power output in theory should be 275bhp…The original TVR quoted power of a 4.0 HC which at best was optimistic. In reality, it might have 240-250bhp. Mine should hopefully make a touch more than that, but the rolling road tell-all will tell-all.

If you’re not an anorak you can skip to the next paragraph because this may put you to sleep. So, the HT leads are 8mm silicon-angled ones connected to NGK BPR6ES spark plugs – special resisted ones because of the electrical interference these cars give off beggar’s belief. Should you fit unresisted spark plugs with no extender it can genuinely interfere with neighbours' TV receptions.

Even with the resisted plugs the electric interference means I can hear the windscreen wipers motor’s relay through the speakers. There’s no point reporting the issue to be told “They all do that” because they don’t say that, you just get told at least the wipers are working.