Last week was Boxing Day, a holiday (I think?) in Canada and the United Kingdom (I think?), whose sole purpose is to celebrate that the day before was Christmas (I think?). So to celebrate those weird British holidays, here's Queen Elizabeth II being the awesome little old lady she is, and driving a Landie with a stick shift.
You might think that the Queen, being a queen, would do nothing of the sort. You might think that being the primary successor to a line of remarkably inbred people would entitle her to ride in nothing but the back of the finest custom Bentleys running on perfect biofuels, while hundreds, nay, thousands of fat Corgis swim at her feet.
But no. The Queen is actually kind of a BAMF. Not only does she drive her own Defender, clutch and all, around her 20,000 acre estate, she also casually calls out some blokes for poaching her rabbits and then speeds off like she just ain't care.
Because, of course, she learned how to be a BAMF like all old British ladies learned how to be a BAMF – in World War II. Seriously, here's Liz (all her best friends, like us, here at Jalopnik, call her Liz. Hey Liz!) next to one of her earlier rides, a goddamn enormous ambulance:
Then known as Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen was but a mere Second Subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she trained as not just a driver, but also a mechanic.
And since I can't personally profess to be intimately familiar with a big World War II-era truck, that's one she's got on me.
But only that one. She still has yet to throw off the Yoke of Royal Oppression.
Photo credit: Imperial War Museum