In the glovebox - Jason Plato

In our latest interview where we challenge celebrities about their motoring experiences we've gone head-to-head with British Touring Car Championship ace Jason Plato.

Former BTCC champion Plato didn't let us down with his entertaining and amusing answers as we find out a few home truths about the SEAT driver.

We've got plenty of interviews lined-up on our starting grid, so keep coming back, but for now please enjoy this entertaining and revealing chat with Jason.

Did you pass your driving test first time? If not at which attempt?
Jason Plato: Did I heck! I failed first time because I was over-confident. I took my test on my 17th birthday without having had a single lesson - I was so confident as I'd been karting for years. Added to that, my mum worked as a nurse and, when she was at work I took her car out with my mates on the highway - from the age of 13 in fact. So when it came to my test I was sure I was going to pass. I was just too relaxed to be honest and, when I was told I'd failed, I couldn't believe. I got a hard time from my mates but not as much as when I failed my second test for being over-cautious. Shocking really.

First car?
Jason Plato: Would you believe it, it was a Volkswagen Beetle - an absolutely smashing car. Before global warming, there was a lot of snow up in Newcastle where I grew up and it was like driving on an ice rink with a million horsepower. It was brilliant but I moved onto a 2CV, would you believe, soon after that. It used to cost £5 to fill with petrol and it'd still be running after a couple of weeks. I ended up breaking it on a race track.

Current car?
Jason Plato: Well, I've got a Seat of course. But I also have a Porsche 911 Turbo and a Volkswagen Tuareg diesel.

Best car you've ever driven?
Jason Plato: Working on Fifth Gear, I get to drive a lot of cracking cars but the Porsche 911's a fantastic car and you'd have to go some way to find something to better that. It's a tough car to beat.

And the worst?
Jason Plato: The Caparo T1 was pretty bad - it set on fire at 150mph, in fact it set me on fire which wasn't great. In fact, it was a bag of s***. However, it's not the worst car. It was the the Ligier Ambra, basically their version of the Smart car. I did a test in it for a programme called Driven on Channel Five back in about 2000 and it was so bad, we scrapped the test and actually threw it into a skip. I think it's genuinely the only car I've ever truly hated.

Read more of Jason's answers >>