In a slight twist to the tale, the modern motor mechanic is becoming more like a software engineer. Gone are the days when a bloke armed with an oily rag and a socket set could work on your car. Nowadays, the first thing that they do is wire up your car to a diagnostics machine or plug their laptop into the engine management system and start a download.

On the other hand, there are days when I want to set about my code with a wrench...