Don’t you love Christmas? Me too. I can’t help but get caught up in the whole experience of it all. I love the carols, the food and most of all the spirit.

Everyone’s happy at Christmas. But there’s one problem it creates. And no, I’m not talking about buying presents or keeping the kids quiet – the answer to both of those is socks.

The problem is cards and exactly who to send them to.

My solution is the same as last year; send none. But I might make one exception this year and write a card to the engineers at BMW, thanking them for the 1991 BMW 535i from the action thriller Ronin, directed by John Frankenheimer, who also made Papillion, Patton and most notably his 1966 breakthrough movie Grand Prix.

Action sequences, because of their complexity, are nearly always shot by a second unit director. Frankenheimer, however, did all these himself, sometimes even riding along with the stunt drivers. And while he could have opted to use digital effects for some of the sequences, he chose instead to film these in real time, thus ensuring a maximum level of authenticity.

Now, I’m not a huge BMW fan, but I am a Robert De Niro groupie and if it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me.

And with everything as standard and 208 bhp under the bonnet, it’s hard to see who this car...well, wouldn’t be good enough for.

After all, there’d be no “silent night” with this engine roaring under your bonnet.

Of course, realistically speaking, if this car was made today it’d be an impressive mid-range saloon.

But it wasn’t. It was made nearly 20 years ago.

So how on Earth was this accomplished? With stereotypical German organisation that’s how.

The efficient, economical Europeans tweaked and prodded to find the perfect balance, so brilliantly displayed later in Ronin’s climatic chase.

Look, if you’ve got seven spare minutes, I strongly advise you to go on YouTube to watch it too.

The BMW destroys almost every car in Paris (although the plucky Peugeot wins in the end).

But come on, which would you rather have? The 535i isn’t pretty but, like De Niro, it has presence.

Which means, if you’ve got a free moment in the holidays, you too could write to those good men at BMW.

After all, ’tis the season...