HELPLINE

ANXIOUS ABOUT DIPPING INTO THE USED CAR MARKET? FEAR NOT! WE’RE HERE TO SAVE YOU WITH PRACTICAL CONSUMER ADVICE

Dear TopGear Helpline,

Help! I’m having a midlife crisis! What do you recommend? Dave, Tring

Dave, don’t panic. The midlife crisis is simply the brain’s way of coming to terms with the limits of our life’s achievements, and the inevitability of our own mortality. Experts advise there are some simple, effective steps you can take to combat these feelings: more exercise, committing to new projects to gain fresh motivation, and opening up about your insecurities to family members or trusted friends. However, that sounds like hard work, so instead we’d recommend buying yourself a secondhand Audi R8. V8, manual gearbox, £35k, you’ll be back to your old self within days.

Dear TopGear Helpline,

I’m looking to invest in a future classic, but with prices skyrocketing I’m struggling to find anything in budget. Dave, Harrogate

Prices of anything that might loosely be termed a classic are going through the roof, with investors plunging cash into almost anything reasonably old and reasonably rare. Even more modest genres such as Eighties hot hatches have achieved the status – and price tag – of classics in recent years.