But there's no point shouting, because soon, the annual tax bill for a commuter in a Mondeo will be £10k a year. Which you pay out of a taxed income...

You might envisage then a return to Edwardian times, with the rich on the road and you in the workhouse, coughing up blood from a disgusting disease you caught from your horse.

Don't worry though, because there is a way round the problem. I can't help you with petrol prices. I suspect, however, the oil-producing nations will do that when they wake up one day and wonder why their export is being used to prop up Western economies. Nor can I do much about the road pricing, short of designing a stealth car.

However, I can help you with the preposterous road tax, because you see, it's not just Blue Motions and G-Wizes that are exempt. There's a third way... you buy a car registered before 1973.

Now, I realise if you are eight years old, 1973 seems like the 13th century. You probably imagine that cars back then were mostly used for ploughing.

Not so. If you buy a car from 1973, you could have a Lambo Countach, or a Ferrari 512 B/B. And back then, Porsche was making something called the 911 which, so far as I can tell, is almost exactly the same as the 911 you can buy today.

What I'd do for sheer perverse pleasure is buy a '73 Range Rover. I can think of nothing quite so glorious as pulling up alongside some silly sod in a Toyota Pious, who's paid £250 for his tax, while I, with my huge 3.5-litre V8, have paid bugger all.

Of course, there are going to be a few problems with cars from back then. A Mk3 Cortina, for example - even the excellent 2000E - did not come with electric seats, satnav, power steering, aircon, electric door mirrors or, come to think ofit any door mirrors at all. It wasn't that fast either.

But I happen to know it's very easy to replace the Ford four with a big V8. And still Darling won't be able to help himself to any of your money.

And this is what I'm thinking. The car must have been registered before 1973, but what, exactly, constitutes 'a car'. If, for instance, you were to buy a Cortina, why stop at the engine? You could also change the rear axle, the engine, most of the body panels, and all of the interior to make it look, feel and go like a modern car. And yet it would still have the original log book. Which means, technically, it would still be a pre-'73 car. And therefore exempt from the badger's grubby mitts.

And so, having established that we must all now buy cars from before 1973, it's my job, as the oldest man on the Top Gear team, to steer you in the right direction.

Obviously, there were some good Jags from this period. The pretty Series Two fits the time frame nicely, and I can especially recommend the XJ12. Not only is its 5.3-litre engine extremely thirsty and wasteful, but it was built by Communists, so it will be badly finished and prone to a great deal of smoking. This'll infuriate the greens enormously.

As you may know, I've gone for the Mercedes 600 Grosser, which is a behemoth. Fabulously unenvironmental and, should I choose to run over a politician one day, extremely dangerous. But, hey. Darling has forced me into it. So if he gets splattered by my chromed front end, it's his fault.

Unfortunately, the Grosser is very rare, which is why I would steer you in the direction of Britain's Mustang. The Ford Capri. I'm minded to suggest the RS2600, but this had fuel injection, which smacks of efficiency. Better to go for the later RS3100, which had twin choke carbs. What's more, with a bit of tuning and a four-valve head,it could be tuned to produce a tax-free 435bhp.

Who says you don't get sensible consumer advice from Top Gear any more?