A perfect fit

Vicki Butler-Henderson admits she was born into a family of car enthusiasts and racers. ‘My grandfather raced a Frazer Nash at Brooklands, and my dad was a member of the British Karting Team in his teens,’ she tells us. ‘I grew up driving go-karts and tractors on the family farm.’

While she may have been destined to be a lifelong car nut, no-one could have predicted what happened next. After working at various car magazines – often as the only female journalist on the team – in the early 1990s, Vicki got the chance to present a story on BBC’s Top Gear programme. She never looked back, and her TV career continues to this day as the presenter of Fifth Gear Recharged on the Quest channel.

Over the course of her long and successful career as a car reviewer, Vicki has driven an incredible array of supercars and racing machines, but none can compare to the gem that she keeps tucked away in her own garage.

‘It’s a 2007 911 GT3 Clubsport, Gen 1,’ she says. ‘The Clubsport package means it has bucket seats and a roll cage – and a fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell. It makes it more of a single-seater, I like to think,’ she jokes.

It’s not the first Porsche Vicki has owned – there have also been Cayenne family cars for the school run, and a Cayman GT4. However, while those were eventually sold, the black GT3 is definitely ‘a keeper’.

‘We’ve owned it since 2017, and after every car I’ve driven since, I just come back to this one,’ she explains. ‘It just fits, the engineering is amazing ... You can’t improve on it.’