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When Geri Haliwell was handed a toy sports car by her father as a seven-year-old girl, it planted a seed in her mind.  

'Thanks to dad one of my earliest childhood treasures was a little red sports car, and I always dreamed of owning one just like it,' the now Geri Horner says in BBC documentary Geri's 1990s: My Drive to Freedom.

When she shot to fame with the Spice Girls, Geri immediately treated herself to a life-sized version of the convertible - although her father Laurence, who died in 1993, was no longer around to see it.

The 44 year old reveals on the show how she regretted selling the car when she left the group - only for her now husband, the Formula One boss Christian Horner, to track it down 17 years later and present it to her as a surprise birthday gift.  

Geri Horner, 44, charts her story from childhood through to the present, and discusses her most treasured possession - her red MGB roadster car

Geri was surprised by her husband Christian - who she married in 2015 - when he tracked down the red car she sold after she left the Spice Girls

The former pop star reveals on the show how the devastating loss of her father in 1993 - three years before Wannabe propelled her to stardom as Ginger Spice - sparked her desire to succeed.

'I was just in my own little zone, what really threw me was in the November period [when] my father died. I was almost paralysed by grief, I didn’t have the right sort of tools to process it,' Geri explains. 

'I have this theory, I don’t know if it’s true, but I think success comes from three things, one is preparation, one is opportunity and one is need. I think my father’s death gave me the need, that death energy.

'It drove me into militant work [thinking] “okay I’m going to do this”. 

'That’s when I met the girls in the band. That was when I found something I could hold on to, and distract myself from that pain and grief that I didn’t understand.'

The treasured toy car played a huge part in her life and when Geri and the girls - Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisolm, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham - hit the big time, Geri splashed out on a real version of her most cherished toy. 

'For me when I got my first fat cheque, the one thing that really epitomised freedom and optimism for me was the little red open top car, and that was one of the first things I went and bought.

'I think for me money represented freedom as well, and I was like "wow yeah I can have a say in my own destiny".'

But after breaking millions of fans' hearts when she chose to leave the Spice Girls in May 1998, Geri went on a mission to de-clutter her life.

She explains in the documentary, in which she charts her own rise to stardom in the '90s, that she sold her beloved open top roadster to raise money for charity.

Geri, in her famous Union Jack Brit Awards dress, was at the height of fame as Ginger Spice in the group who were all about 'girl power' 

After years of pining for her sports car Geri was reunited with it thanks to her husband who managed to find it with a new owner in Yorkshire

'I was moving on from the band and I wanted to say this was a fresh start, and I thought we could do some good [with] all the things I accumulated.

'It was one of those things that felt very cleansing, but I think I was always a little bit nostalgic and regretful if I'm honest and I would always harp on about it.' 

But some 17 years later, her husband, the Formula One Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner - who Geri married in 2015 - tracked down the car and brought it back to her as a birthday gift.

'On my birthday my lovely husband found the very car, I think it was 17 years later after I sold it. The guy that had bought it in Yorkshire had still got it.  

'I swear to you I started crying when I saw it, I couldn’t believe it. This car represents the '90s dream, the freedom. This little MGB roadster is me, I just love it.' 

Geri's 1990s: My Drive to Freedom airs Saturday March 11, BBC Two at 9pm