The World According to Sir Richard Branson

For someone with as big of a personality as Sir Richard Branson, the globetrotting, vivacious figurehead of Virgin Group, his cars sure are humble.

Holding fast to his British roots, Sir Richard drives a classic convertible made in Britain that looks much better than it runs and has a fantastically quirky name: Humber Super Snipe.

But he has much bigger ambitions for the automobile.

Sir Richard looks forward to the day when drivers can literally rise above traffic jams in flying cars. And they would do so with environmentally friendly fuel, the likes of which Virgin Atlantic is currently testing for use in its jets.

We recently caught up with Sir Richard and got him talking about this and other topics, like the first car he ever drove. Read our conversation below.

ForbesAutos: As a free-spirited adventurer, you must have a really amazing car.
Sir Richard Branson: I don't really drive a particularly amazing car. I've got an Saab, which is a fuel-efficient car. I also have an old Humber Super Snipe convertible, which is quite a fun car. I got it for $2,000 about 20 years ago. I just fell in love with it. I liked the look of it. It was built in 1949. But I keep having to push it everywhere, so it is not very useful.

FA: There is a photo of you driving an amphibious car, the Gibbs Aquada, with a huge smile on your face.
Sir Richard: Now that was fun! That was great fun! That was an amphibious car that goes 120 miles per hour on land and 40 miles by sea. You literally can drive 120 mph straight into the sea and then for 30 to 40 miles across the English Channel, which I did. I really felt like James Bond. In fact, I was more James Bond than James Bond that day!

FA: What was the first car you owned?
Sir Richard: It was a 1968 Morris Mini-Minor. It had blacked-out windows. The reason it had blacked-out windows is because I could never pass my driving test. So when I got stopped, I would climb over to the passenger seat and my friend who had a license would climb into the driving seat. It would have been about in 1968.

FA: What are automobiles missing?
Sir Richard: I'd certainly like to see a car that flies. I think that when you are stuck in a traffic jam, you really want to be able to just hop over the cars in front. I am sure that within the next 5 to 10 years there will be a car that can fly, and there will be long arguments about whether we can turn our parks and cities into places these cars can land. We've got cars that can go in the water, we should have cars that can go into the air.

FA: What are you doing next to expand your empire?
Sir Richard: Well as you might know we're working on space travel and Virgin Galactic is going to be going into space in 10 months time. Our spaceships will be done soon, and we'll be doing test flights. Then from there we hope to set up a Virgin hotel in space. We have quite ambitious plans for space travel. In the meantime, back here on earth we are developing clean fuels and very excitingly we will be flying this year a 747 on clean fuels so it wont be damaging the environment.

FA: What kind of clean fuels will you use?
Sir Richard: We are going to be unveiling that this year, but we pledge we will fly a plane on clean fuels this year, and we are confident that we can honor that pledge. And if that works, hopefully within the next years all planes flying in the sky can fly on clean fuels, which obviously from a global warming point of view is very important.

FA: Will you also dabble in the luxury car industry?
Sir Richard: Yes, we are looking at trying to create cars that run on clean energy, so that is a huge possibility.

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Top image courtesy of Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Bottom image courtesy of the Quattroruote archives.