Steve Hindle

There’s no doubting that thanks to some exceptional individual and team performances at the 2012 Olympics, Cool Britannia is now very much back in vogue. Whether you’re lucky enough to have seen the action live, or have been watching at home, in a bar or at work, the sight of 000’s of Union Jacks waving in fervent admiration can only reinforce the feelings of pride and passion that resonate across this small island nation.

Anybody following the ongoing story of the cataclysm wrenching at the relationships between Group Lotus, its adoptive parent Proton, and Lotus F1 Team will be used to reading opinions so wide and varied that even the most extreme soap-opera storyline might seem tame in comparison.

It is three years since I first visited Westfield’s Kingswinford factory; a trip that made such an impression that it would ultimately lead to me working there. Yet just over 12 months later, my faith was lost and exit swift.

The sign on the side of the truck is simple yet evocative – “The Power of Dreams” it reads.

I’d been looking forward to EcoVelocity, London’s Low-Carbon Motor Festival. The choice of venue, the now defunct Battersea Power Station, was inspiring. I could picture the decaying edifice, a symbol of the once might of its smouldering furnaces, now nothing but a fossil, left for generations to wonder over. And there, emerging from the ruins would be living incarnations of the new era; cars and bikes, powered by clean, renewable energy and travelling through air fit for all to breathe.

There are few sights as mesmerising as a convoy of iconic supercars growling their way through the streets of London. Thousands of horses straining to be unleashed, clutches smouldering in frustrated anticipation; “look” I heard a young boy shout excitedly to his father, “an Enzo”.