london visit &cars

What strikes me at once every time I go up to London is how clean the cars are. Everyones car is immaculate, not only clean of course but also dent free and not that old either. Contrast this to my fleet.  My Toyota Land Cruiser is all of a dozen years old and like a venerrable battleship has been through the wars and shows its scars of many an argument, some lost and some won, with hedges and gate posts. The second car in my courtyard is a Renault Megane which is a mere stripling at four years old and was broughtsecond hand in immaculate condition only just over a year ago. Alas for good intentions.  Already the once pristine bodywork has on the left hand side been badly dented by my son who had an argument with a gate post when parking the car for a party.  In London though no one seems ever to dent their cars and I do wonder whether many of them are ever driven or,  rather like those gleaming yachts in Marinas, actually never ever leave the safety of the harbour - a yacht insurance underwriter once told me that the average such yacht only goes to sea for around four hours a year!  Is it the same perhaps for the Bentleys and Masera\ttis which litter the streets of Knightsbridge and Mayfair. Do the owners just, now and again, go and sit in them and entertain their friends to a cocktail? it seems the only likely explanation as moving around in a car in London must be a nightmare and taxis are so plentiful and comfortable.