Different times

FOLLOWING ON from Andy Palmer’s experience with a Lotus Carlton in last month’s Letters, I was the managing director at Lotus Cars Ltd when the Lotus Carlton was being developed and, as with all test and competitors’ cars, I drove the Carlton too.

Late one afternoon, I took a development car the long way home. The recently built Wymondham bypass then had very little traffic and, since it is very smooth and virtually straight, I gave the Lotus Carlton the beans. I’d got it up to 160mph when I passed a small bridge with a police car on it and, as I flashed by, its blues-and-twos lit up.

The police followed me onto the A11, but I was out of sight in a short time. When I got to the end of the bypass, I thought I would double back towards Wymondham on the old road, the A1172. I swung into a farm shop and parked up out of sight, turned the engine off and waited.

After 15 minutes, I thought that I’d be in the clear – but then a police