Feature: Keith Moon's life in cars

'I thought that's it, that's my lot,' he says, 'But the police were more interested in the aerial on the roof. They asked me where the TV was and I said Keith had thrown it out of the window because he couldn't get a picture. They said: "No!? Thanks very much then, goodnight."'

Moon's own approach to drinking and driving was characteristically perverse: he only ever took the wheel while drunk.

'He only wanted to drive when he was pissed,' explains Dougal. To compound the problem, Keith had never concerned himself with formalities such as driving lessons or indeed, a licence. But these oversights never prevented him collecting vehicles at a rate that would shame most motor museums, especially after he bought Tara House, a futuristic country mansion near Chertsey.

'He just went bonkers on cars,' Dougal remembers. Moon's rapidly accumulating purchases included an AC 428 Frua previously owned by Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Powered by a seven-litre Ford engine, it was, Dougal recalls, 'unbelievably fast'.

But not on the day it broke down on a railway crossing. 'It just conked out,' says Dougal. 'Then the bells started ringing. I'm on the telephone to get them to stop the f---ing train or we were all going to get mullah'd! It stopped commuter trains for an hour and a half.'

When a newspaper proposed a feature on the band's cars (by now Roger Daltrey had bought a Stingray, Pete Townshend was driving a Mercedes and John Entwistle had a flashy new Cadillac limo shipped over on the QE2), Dougal had an idea: 'Let's buy a milk float!'

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