McLaren P1, £866,000

ON Wednesday morning I climbed behind the wheel of a McLaren P1, fired up its massive engine, eased it into Drive and set off in a blizzard of noise and wheelspin to start filming Amazon Prime’s new motoring show.

On one side of me was James May in a Ferrari the Ferrari. On the other was Richard Hammond in a Porsche 918 Spyder. And in front, hanging from the back of a Land Rover Discovery, was the big, bushy beard of Ben the cameraman. The band was back together and I was very excited. But, ooh, getting it to this point had not been easy.

When the BBC bigwig Alan Yentob called back in April to say my contract would not be