Robinson is happy to show interested guests around his collection, kept in a tidy farm building beside Headlam Hall. Alongside his father’s Series 3 Jaguar E-Type Roadster sits a racing TVR, a Series I Land Rover and a 1976 Porsche 911. The two cars currently available for hire are a 2002 Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante convertible and a soft-top 1973 MG Midget. Robinson is considering making available a convertible 1981 Mercedes 380SL alongside them.
“Often the hire is a gift,” he says. “One lady bought her husband a day’s hire of the Midget for his 70th birthday. It turned out to be the same model as his very first car.” Prices start at £125 for a half-day in the Midget, but drivers must be guests of the hotel, with a dinner-inclusive package (from £218 a night per couple).
Clement weather enhances the appeal of the open-top options. With the DB7’s power hood down, visibility is excellent and the elements are bracing but bearable with the heating turned up. Driving across the bleak, brooding yet starkly beautiful moorland of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is both easy and riveting, given the lightness of steering, a more forgiving suspension than the Morgan’s and the mighty V12 engine.
The route that Robinson has devised takes me past the majestic High Force waterfall, through picturesque towns and villages, such as Middleton-in-Teesdale, and on to the 18th-century Rose and Crown in Romaldkirk, which sits on the village green beside a church dating from Saxon times. The inn’s virginia creeper is flaming red. Inside are welcoming public rooms and real fires – which are turning out to be a theme of my travels, as are the local ales, local produce featured on the menu and the sensitively restored fabric of the building. Life is good here.
Further north, in the Scottish Borders, the dog-friendly Trigony House Hotel has partnered with a local car-hire company to offer some truly unusual driving options, including a 1937 Austin saloon (£210 for the day).
Meanwhile, in Perthshire, that festive favourite Gleneagles has its off-road driving experience involving Argocats and original Land Rover Defenders – and for younger drivers, mini Land Rover replicas (from £120 for 45 minutes).
