Not your common or garden Popular, mine was the Popular Plus and therefore had.... you know what, I can't think of a single creature comfort that the car had.

It was my first company car but I quickly got into the routine of thrashing it mercilessly and generally driving like a complete knob.

My work trip was an 80 mile journey that I did every day so every MPH made a difference to my laptime... sorry, the time it took me to get to work. Bizarrely there was a guy who had a similar journey who had a Metro - we'd just happen to come across each other on the Motorway so we'd "race" each other for 20 miles or so. Mine was slightly quicker (we're talking 2 or 3 MPH - probably 92 MPH tops) but he made more (truly mental) lane changes than me.

I was once taking a short cut through a hilly village, threw my fag out of the window but it landed on the back seat. It my rush to lean back I hit a massive kerb, bounced in the air and ended up parked up, perfectly, on someones driveway.... on the opposite side of the road. I'd managed to bounce in between two massive lorries that were loaded with stone from the nearby quarry. A bit of good luck methinks. Moral of the story? Don't give a fuck about burning the back seat of a company car.

Despite being a mere Fiesta, it excelled at winter rallying. We used to take it to this huge car park when it snowed, all the windows down and I'd take people for a "spin". The car was literally full of snow and it was a hoot until I went into a snow drift sidewards at 30 mph only to find the snow drift was actually a trailer covered in snow. The car was already so wrecked that there was no obvious damage to the car... the trailer got a bit flattened though.

The front wheel drive system didn't help too much when I put it in a ditch on Christmas day. I was due to be back for the family dinner at 3pm but at 2.50 during handbrake manoeveurs in the middle of nowhere I hit ice and ditched it. Can you believe that 5 cars drove past despite us flagging them down? Bastards. Luckily, the next car was a Land Rover with a winch and everything. I got home at 4, soaking wet and disowned by the family. I made up a fantastic story that they ended up believing by new years.

The bastards at the company told me that I was having a new car soon so to keep maintance low. So when it needed new tyres I bought remoulds. Two months later, the new car hadn't arrived so I sat with the handbrake on wheelspinning until the tyres were through to the canvass. "That's what you get for buying remoulds" said I. I then went to my tyre fitting mate and told him to find the softest, most expensive tyres he could find in that size. They cost a fortune and lasted about 4 weeks. "That'll teach 'em" was the irrational thought that past through my mind.... right up until the point where they made me redundant - bastards.

Arfer Daley