It's like a big-lunged deep-throated Volkswagen Beetle without the clatter

It's like a big-lunged, deep-throated Volkswagen Beetle without the clatter. But wouldn't you like to get just a little closer to the rally experience, to drive a yet faster, leaner, meaner Scooby-doo? Then ask your dealer to send your car to Prodrive to be made into an Impreza WR. Nowadays it's a cult car: nothing else under pounds 20,000 is as fast or clings to the road so determinedly while being as laughably easy to drive, and nothing at all has an engine which sounds quite like the Impreza's off-beating flat-four. Inevitably the kudos has rubbed off on Subaru's standard road version. Prodrive runs the Subaru works rally team, and its four-wheel drive Impreza turbos have been winning world championship rallies for years.

Although the colour was horrible it was quite comfortable, with really soft suspension and that big, lazy, thirsty V8 engine.Ultimately it was cheap and did its job The fact we were breaking down in California helped. If we'd had that much trouble getting to and from a windswept and rainy Crystal Palace meet we would have minded a lot more.Olympic athlete Roger Black presents `Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit' a video from BBC Worldwide at pounds 10.99, which takes 10 volunteers through their paces to see how they shape up over a 10-week period He was talking to James Ruppert. It never failed to get us to where we wanted to go, it would just take a lot longer than we planned.Actually, we got rather attached to that Oldsmobile by the end. Every few days the temperature gauge would hit max, there would be loads of steam and cursing from us as it came to an unscheduled stop.

Then we had to find somewhere to get water from, although eventually we got wise and took our own supply.On a couple of occasions it really dropped us in it because we'd be stuck in the middle of a desert waiting for the car to cool down when we should have been warming up for an athletics meeting 20 miles away. One reason for that may have been that it actually leaked petrol. It must have been a major fire hazard from day one, but the rental company did manage to put that right before we went up in smoke.The big problem though was overheating. So although the rental was a reasonable $4 a day, it easily cost $20 in petrol. We trawled around the rent-a-car sites until we eventually found one we could afford What they gave us was truly hideous. We were staying a long way from anywhere and getting to the track, our accommodation, or meetings was a complicated business. We were so strapped for cash, even taxis and buses were out of the question In short, we had to have a car.