Isla's Capri

It was the car you always promised yourself. Bodie and Doyle roared around in a pair of them in The Professionals. Terry McCann drove one in Minder. The Ford Capri was an icon of the 1970s and 80s

- JULIA DOUGLAS

Forty years later, Isla reckoned it still looked just as stylish. She was sitting at a pavement table beneath a sunshade on the French Riviera, surrounded by tanned and beautiful people.

The seafront was lined with Lamborghinis and Ferraris, but against a backdrop of white beach and aquamarine sea, her gleaming orange Capri looked sharper than any of them.

Admiring the photo of it she'd just uploaded to Instagram, she smiled at the memory of finding her first Capri on a used car lot in Dumfries when she was twenty.

In two-tone white and dusky pink, it stood out like a jewel among the Cortinas and Cavaliers. With its long, sweeping bonnet, hunched rear and snarling grille, it looked like a predator, ready to pounce.

At ten years old, it had some rust around the edges, but she could live with that. Especially for just £500, which was well within her budget.

No girl in Dumfries had a motor like Isla's. She reckoned it caught Sandy's eye before she did, but she wasn't complaining!

In the year they were courting, they drove it all over Scotland. For their honeymoon they took the Capri to London, cruising past Nelson's Column and over Tower Bridge. She even named her son, Ford, after the car.