On reflection, there were sound reasons why Noel Edmonds was more comfortable than I was with the idea of attempting manned flight in a Qpod. The Qpod is a pocket-sized, plastic-bodied, on-and off-road vehicle, and Noel's plan, spontaneously hatched during a recent, Qpod-mounted, courtesy tour of his Devon acres, was to get all four of its wheels off the ground at once by driving it very fast into and out of a creek.
My plan, meanwhile, as Noel's passenger, was to hold on tight to whatever was available in the cabin (nothing, as it happened) while maintaining an expression of relaxed enthusiasm and encouragement - or as close to one as I could muster through my increasingly tangible terror.
As the person responsible for importing the Qpod from France and marketing it in Britain, Noel has logged enough hours at the wheel of one - or rather, at its handlebars - to know intimately this extraordinary French mini-vehicle's capacity, particularly vis-à-vis flying in a beautifully sylvan area.
As Noel withdrew across the field, to give himself a better run-up to the creek, I gritted my teeth and tried to focus on these comforting thoughts, further consoling myself that, with the promotion of the vehicle in mind, Noel would have little to gain from hanging one upside down in a tree in front of a photographer from a national newspaper.
We had left the outbuildings that house Noel's company Unique, in a Qpod Sport and, 340cc engine gurgling, had driven towards pasture and woodland. Now we were readying ourselves to thunder down a bank, through water and up the other side with a view to achieving lift-off. There was a fizz, a whoosh, a clatter of stones and brambles and a massive crump. "I think that was two wheels," Noel said. "Let's go again." So we did, until we got three wheels aloft, and then, at last, four.
Noel - whose face was illuminated throughout with sheer pleasure - let out a wheezing laugh. I concentrated on maintaining my smile and trying to dissuade my spine from getting out to compose a letter of complaint.
Actually, I could have reassured myself that, for a fun-wagon, the Qpod majors in safety. Memo to Ozzy Osbourne: you bought the wrong bike. The Qpod is not overpowered, precarious and a threat to life and collar-bone, like your average quad. (The Fun and City versions can come with teen-friendly, 50cc engines.) Indeed, drive one for a short while, and it engenders confidence to a surprising degree in what is, essentially, a remoulded wheelie bin. I don't doubt that you could roll a Qpod, if you caught a stray log or a dormant cow just right. But you would have to work at it and you would at least have support above your head and proper seatbelts.
It's like a Mumbai tuk-tuk, but in racing trim. There's a simple gearshift - forward, neutral, reverse - and a stubby handbrake down by your legs. Acceleration is via a motorcycle twist-grip, braking via the solitary foot pedal. Being French, it is left-hand drive, but the body is so small you barely notice. The boot can hold a few carrier bags and, sweetly, there's a moulded cup-holder on the dash. And, er, that's it. You can get a detachable hard-top or a "shower cap" soft-top that stows in the boot. There are versions with half or full doors, if you don't like mud. You can snap on different coloured body-panels, as with a mobile phone.
In fact, the Qpod is a chameleon among vehicles altogether: a big kid's toy; an elderly person's shopping trolley; a postman's delivery buggy; a tourist's rickshaw; a pizza boy's runaround, an urban-dweller's congestion solution; and a land-owner's sheep-botherer.
Dorset police are currently trialling Qpods as off-road pursuit vehicles. The Metropolitan force is curious, too, wondering if the Qpod can assist them in their desire for a conspicuous but unthreatening community presence. You can see what they mean about unthreatening. The Qpod is deeply cute. It looks like a marriage between Budgie the Helicopter and a Smart car.
I got to drive one solo for a while and was soon wondering whether there was some mechanical correlation between the twist-grip accelerator and the size of the driver's grin. I never got airborne. But, slaloming around on the pasture, I did almost rear-end Noel: I missed my footing on the brake, swerved to avoid what looked like the opening to a mine shaft, and wedged my Qpod briefly in a ditch. I think Noel appreciated that. I know I did.
· For more details about the Qpod, call 0870 600 0087 or visit www.qpod.co.uk
