Is motoring journalism as hard as being a doctor? | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

My job is never going to save anyone’s life. When I close my laptop for the last time and look back over the decades of my career, I’ll smile at all the fun I had, take pride in having been employed by some of the best media brands in my business and be quietly happy at the thought that I might have sporadically brought a very small amount of extremely light and entirely disposable entertainment in a few lives along the way. But nothing more. What I do is not remotely important. If you want to make a real difference to people’s lives by driving, go drive a bus for the council.

And yet I love it. I love it so much I sometimes wonder what that says about me. I know that some, professional types mainly, look down on people like me, as if there is something inherently wrong about earning a living doing what you enjoy, as if that money that comes in at the end of the month is somehow tainted if there’s not been some sacrifice made to earn it. They’re probably right.

There are sacrifices in this business, the early starts, the late finishes, the very modest sums earned compared to what many of your peers are raking in and so on, but they really don’t add up to anything important so long as you’re someone who will always value their quality of life ahead of their standard of living. And, perhaps conveniently, I always have.

Take as an example, the next little test I’m going to conduct. Parked outside right now is a Toyota GR86 and an Alpine A110 and I’d be the first to say they are not the most natural of bedfellows. For a start, at just under £30,000, the Toyota is almost exactly £20,000 cheaper than the Alpine. And while both are rear-drive coupes, the Toyota has rear seats, the Alpine does not. The GT86 engine is naturally aspirated, the A110’s smaller, but turbocharged. The Japanese car has manual gears, the French prefers automatic. And, of course, the Toyota places its engine in front of the driver, the Alpine behind.

And yet both are intended to offer the purest, most tactile of driving experiences within the broad remit of a car that can be used every day. And it absolutely fascinates me that two such vast companies as Toyota and Renault, both awash with talent and given permission by their boards to create not very profitable brand building cars like these, would choose to go about it in such different ways.

Which is the better solution? Well, the price, the naturally aspirated engine and three pedal footwell would all suggest it’s the GT86 that’s the true sportscar of the people here, especially as it’s scarcely less powerful than the A110. But the Alpine is regarded as one of the most exceptional sportscars not just of its era, but ever conceived, thanks to its extreme light weight, compact dimensions and a chassis of rare genius set up for feel and fun, not an ultimate lap time.

The joy of it is that, sitting here writing this, I have no better idea than you which one I’ll end up thinking does better the job it was designed to do. But I know precisely how I’ll find out, where I’ll take them, which route I’ll take, even what time I’m going to set the alarm. Then I’ll enjoy even more sitting down and letting my thoughts fall out of my fingers onto this laptop.

But here’s the thing. Once the story is written and filed to whichever client I can persuade to take it, I’ll forget about it. The memories and opinions will stay should I be required to recall them, but they’ll be front and centre in my mind for only as long as they are required to be. Then they’ll get parked and I’ll move onto the next one.

In that one sense alone, they are to me what patients are to doctors. They’d not be very good at their jobs if they spent their lives patting themselves on the back for the last life saved, and I’m not going to be able to focus very well on a big SUV test I’ve got coming up if my mind is full of small, lithe sports cars. But that’s the only connection. And I do wonder when this business gives me up if "having had a lot of fun" is going to be enough to look back on. But I think it probably will or will have to, not least because so limited is my skillset, I really couldn’t have done anything else. I’d like to have become a doctor, but simply lack the intellectual equipment to do it. Steering wheels and keyboards, not scalpels and stethoscopes, are the tools of my trade and despite it all, I feel blessed to have been able to live my life this way.