To the public he is the sometimes curmudgeonly patrician of the royal family, a gaffe-prone elder whose advanced years have steadily reduced his participation in onerous duties. 

But behind the scenes the Duke of Edinburgh is a man who has always felt the need for speed, even as he nears his 100th year.

Prince Philip, who staggered shakily but unhurt from a road crash on Thursday, has long held an appreciation for things that go fast – whether it be horses, cars, aeroplanes or helicopters. 

Many were surprised the 97-year-old was behind the wheel of the Land Rover which overturned on a public road near the Queen’s Sandringham Estate.

But to close friends there was no shock that the Duke was in the driving seat, with the only thing left to ponder is whether he will finally relinquish the car keys. 

After all, this is a man who reportedly once told the Queen not to distract him while he was driving his sports car – or he would leave her at the roadside. 

Prince Philip, a Second World War veteran who served with the Royal Navy, has led a more action-packed life than most people realise. His latest vehicular escapade comes after a long life of seeking out powerful cars and other conveyances to hone is skills.

The former Conservative MP Gyles Brandreth, a friend for 40 years of the Duke and also his biographer, said that his love of driving has been a life-long affair. 

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, he said: “He did enjoy fast cars. When he first met the Queen and when they began courting in the 1940s he had a little MG sports car, and he’d drive in that pretty fast by the Queen’s own account and I think he had a couple of prangs.

“The he got an Aston Martin, and famously he had a Lagonda coupe which could go at 104mph. 

“He enjoyed fast driving and the engineering of a fast car, so this will be frustrating for him, as well as a great concern.” 

The Lagonda, which was also built by Aston Martin, was no ordinary car. A 1954 3-litre, four-seater Drophead Coupe, it was made to order for the Duke and boasted a radio carphone and an extra vanity mirror, said to have been installed so the Queen could check her hat as they drove along.

Legend has it that Prince Philip regularly used the car phone to make prank calls to Prince Charles, disguising his voice to prolong the joke. 

The royal couple were regularly spotted in the classic sportscar as he drove through Cowdray Park in West Sussex, where the Duke played polo. 
Mr Brandreth recalled: “When he was younger he was a dynamo. He did everything fast and he could be impatient. 

“His cousin, Countess Mountbatten told me that her father Lord Mountbatten was once driving with the Queen and Prince Phillip through Cowdray Park and Prince Phillip was going far too fast. According to Lord Mountbatten the Queen was sort of yelping and drawing in her breath, flinching as he drove so fast. 
“Prince Phillip turned to her and said ‘Look, if you do that once more I will put you out of the car’.

“And when the hair-raising journey came to an end, Lord Mountbatten asked the Queen why she hadn’t protested, and she replied ‘You heard what he said – and he meant it.’” 

Aside from fast cars, the Duke was also a keen aviator, taking up flying in 1952 and clocking up more than 5,000 air miles in the cockpit of almost 60 different types of aircraft.

Before earning his private pilot’s licence in 1959, he gained his helicopter wings with the Royal Navy in 1956 and was the first royal family member to ever fly out of Buckingham Palace Garden in a helicopter.

He finally gave up flying in 1997, when he was aged 75. 

But when it comes to horses, the Duke remains in the saddle, so to speak. After giving up polo at the age of 50, he took up horse-drawn carriage racing, beginning by practising in the grounds of Sandringham and eventually racing at the World Champions in 1982.

He was photographed in the summer driving a horse-drawn carriage, although he has given up competing. But with the Queen’s consort in his 98th year there may be calls from some for him to give up motoring.

Mr Brandreth said Prince Philip would now most likely stop driving on public roads, though not without “muttering under his breath” about it. 

He said: “I’m not sure he would react too well to that, but everyone will be telling him to slow down – from his wife to the insurers and the Norfolk Constabulary.

“He can afford a chauffeur after all, and indeed the Queen has several on the payroll. Knowing him a little, I don’t think he’s likely to welcome advice to slow down. I mean – he’s only 97, still walking without a stick, still carriage-driving and still living his life his way.

“I’m sure this morning, as well as being grateful to have survived, he will be concerned for the other people involved and he will be shaken by this experience and frustrated that after 80 years of driving he’s likely now not to be driving outside of the private grounds of Sandringham and Windsor.”

The Duke is not the first royal to flip a Land Rover. The Princess Royal’s daughter, Zara Tindall, escaped with minor facial injuries when she overturned on a Gloucestershire country road in 2000.

Philip’s daughter, the Princess Royal, was given a written warning for speeding on the M1 in 1972 and fined £40 after she was clocked doing 96mph on the same motorway five years later. In 1990 the Princess Royal was banned and fined £150 for speeding in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire and in 2001 fined £400 for driving her Bentley at 93mph on a dual carriageway.