The thing about an old, unmodified car is that few things are better at taking you back in time than they are. You are quite literally surrounded by the past, as Richard Hammond recently experienced in his latest DriveTribe video.
Capable of indulging his automotive whims, the Grand Tour host decided to buy back one of his old cars. The 1999 Jaguar XJR was sold to him by Richard Porter, a scriptwriter on Top Gear, and he owned it for a few years around 2010.
“I loved it! It was my daily for a while,” explains Hammond. “I sold it when I was having one of my regular culls of stuff—I’d run out of space—and it was a ‘Ooh, I regret selling that,’ immediately. Instantly. And I have thought about it a few times since.”
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Finally up for sale again, Hammond decided to buy it back and called the dealer, who offered it to him for a reasonable price. Having allegedly had just one owner since he sold it, the car is still in remarkably good condition and as he gets into the driver’s seat, you can see him react to a flood of memories pouring in.
“Oh! That is weird. That is… I’ve just shot straight back. Immediately. But interacting with the gear lever – yeah, nothing’s changed,” he says with a giggle.
And that is a highly relatable part of the video (unlike the part where he goes back to his garage to have it restored by the mechanic whose salary he pays). I have experienced that rush of sensory déjà vu, though, that puts you back in a place and time like few other things in this world. Had Proust driven a Jag, we wouldn’t be talking about Madeleine moments today.
Have you ever been able to get back into a car you used to own? What was the car, and what was the moment like? Let us know in the comments.