Murdoch Troon (Stanley Baxter) is a dour Scot living and working for a local government authority somewhere in south London. A shy young man, his main excitement comes from cycling. After he's forced off the road by an impatient car driver, he tracks down the owner, only to find that he is Commander Chingford (James Robertson Justice), the domineering and acerbic owner of a sports car distributorship.
Chingford reluctantly pays for the damage to Murdoch's cycle, but more significantly, Murdoch meets Claire (Julie Christie), Chingford's beautiful blonde daughter. He is smitten with her and, after she tells him she loves sports cars and would love to have one but "her great dictator" (meaning her father) won't allow it. Even though he can not drive, he is talked into buying a car to impress her by Murdoch's friend and fellow lodger, Freddie Fox (Leslie Phillips), a used car salesman and serial cad. Freddie sees a chance to ingratiate himself with Chingford and also to sell Murdoch a car. The car is a 1927 vintage Bentley 4½ Litre Red Label Speed model, painted in British Racing Green and named The Fast Lady.
Murdoch has his first driving lesson in a less exciting car, an Austin A40 Farina, which proves to be a comedy of disasters with a nervous instructor (Eric Barker). Freddie then makes a deal with Murdoch and offers to teach him, but the results are equally disastrous.
Unwilling to give up, and determined to prove his love for Claire, Murdoch bets her father that he can drive the car. An experienced racing driver, Chingford is convinced that Murdoch has no hope of achieving this — and bets him that he cannot. Murdoch takes Chingford for a drive in the Bentley and loses the bet. But the tables are turned when Chingford loses Murdoch's counter-bet that Chingford cannot drive back home in less than 30 minutes. He then reluctantly allows Claire to go out with Murdoch in the car.
The day comes for Murdoch's driving test. Freddie has set him up with a 'bent' examiner, but Murdoch draws the 'wrong' examiner. As the test comes to an end (and the examiner is almost certainly going to fail Murdoch), the car is commandeered by police to chase a Jaguar car driven by escaping bank robbers. The high speed chase takes them through town and country, across a golf course (leaving in its wake, a trail of disasters) and eventually the robbers are caught. Chingford so admires his driving skill that he allows the couple to get engaged.
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