Editor’s note: The story you are about to read started life when its author contacted Ti to say he’d really like to write for us. But we’re lucky to be replete with world-class contributors as it is, meaning that in all but the most exceptional circumstances we are simply not in a position to accept unsolicited approaches. Ollie Heathcote, though, is nothing if not hard working and enterprising, and he’d included some reviews of cars, written as if he’d driven them, so I could see what his writing was like. And I liked it very much.
The next thing I knew, he was introducing himself to me at the Bicester Heritage Sunday Scramble where we agreed that if he could come up with a good enough idea, then write a good enough story about it, we’d run it on Ti. The story you are about to read is that story. When you read it you’ll see it’s written in a fluent and creative style, by someone who’s clearly passionate about his subject and has done the necessary research.
But why the explanatory notes? Only because Ollie is no common-or-garden, every day, ho-hum automotive hack. He’s a 12-year-old schoolboy with such a passion for cars and a desire to write that he did all of the above off his own bat. I could no more have written as well as this at his age than jump over the moon. Tedious laws about driving licences means we may have to wait a while before Ollie becomes a mainstream motoring journalist – if that’s the path he chooses – but that he has the talent, work ethic and passion to make it in this world should be clear to all who read his words.
So I’d like to thank Ollie for thinking of us and his mum Emma for letting us publish his work. I hope you enjoy reading it and, if you do, choose to say so in the comments – AF
