Why I love...CONFIGURATORS

When I was 13, my IT teacher sent a note home to my parents to tell them that I'd been caught viewing "inappropriate websites" in a lesson.

- BY JACK HARRISON

They were naturally concerned - what could an innocent young teenager such as myself be looking at?

The answer, to their eternal relief, was the configurator for the then new Aston Martin DB11.

For as long as I've had access to the internet, I've been squandering copious amounts of precious time speccing up cars I'll never buy. I think the first configurator I ever found was for the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport, which went live pretty much when I was still in a nappy.

I remember being downright astonished by the detail you could go into even back then, from the more regular options like selecting the split-tone paint finish and which wheels you'd like, all the way to more obscure things like your choice of finish for the fuel filler cap. It was certainly a mammoth test of strength for the old family laptop, which was operating right at the limits of its feeble processing power if the constant, deafening noise of the fan was anything to go by.