Miles or rust ?

[Richard Moore]

Do you have a nice 911 weekender quietly rusting in your garage because you're worried about putting too many miles on it ? Well think again.

Back from Stelvio
Yehaaaa.

Thank you GE ! Being currently redundant I thought I'd take the old porker
for a thrash as it's only rusting in the garage. So I decided to take it
over the Stelvio Pass. When I decided this I didn't actually realise that
it's about as far across Switzerland as you can get. I also had an
electrical problem with the rev counter but I decided to ignore that.

Stelvio is actually in Italy but from the top of it you drive back into
Switzerland over yet another pass. I managed to take in

Reims (Champagne),
Burgundy ,
Lyon,
Geneva, Lausanne,Montreux
Bernese Oberland
Saas Fee and then the Furkka in thick fog - hooooooo
St Gotthard
Lake Lugano and Como
Stelvio
Albula Pass (just me going over that one)
Back through Interlaken (Murren/Piz Gloria - Jungrau etc)
Lucerne
Berne
Verdun
Somme
Amiens

(c.2500 miles)

In all this journey with a few exceptions the roads were clear , windy and
enormous fun in a 20yr old 911. It never faltered once. The roads were
just fantastic. I even got flashed by a 996 GT3RS going back up the
Stelvio (well it's be daft not to do it both ways).

For those not familiar with it - here's shot of part of it. There are 48
switchbacks.

http://www.pbase.com/image/30233883

A few observations.

1) It doesn't matter what speed you are going. The french have to
overtake you. At one point I was doing about 90mph going uphill and got
overtaken by a small peugot.

2) The megane scenic stalked me everywhere and I could never shake them
off. They would follow me over continents and eventually catch me up.

3) Italians can see round blind corners. I must get that update for my
car.

3a) Sliding on gravel while doing a switch back at 7000ft is very exciting

4) The front seat of a 911 is like Mary Poppins carpet bag. Over two weeks I
lost 2 pairs of sun glasses, five pens, a small bag of change and my
PDA pen. You really can lose things in a small car.

5) Check out speedferries for cheap crossings. I got mine for £60

6) Always go on holiday before schools break

7) Ski resorts are dead between the ski and summer seasons. In some places
they're actually closed.

8) If you don't have one buy a 911 and do this trip

9) Marvel at the quality of 20 yr old engineering and ponder if a 20yr old 996 will be able to do the same in 2024

Regards
Richard

'82 SC top end - Parr , gearbox JZ , kidney bowls <tick 2x> wallet - me
As featured in issue 1 of 911 & [][][]PW

 

[Mrkjblue]

Wow great pictures on your website most have been a awesome trip and I believe the correct way to deal with redundancy [].
Do I take it from your pictures you are another Watford man?

 

[Richard Moore]

That would be correct Norf side - near Garston.

 

[Mrkjblue]

How strange I'm on the Tudor. Can't believe I've missed your car driving about.
Did you plan all this journey before you left or day2day? Feel free to post more car and scenery pics as I do love a good travel story.

 

[bones]

Brilliant Richard I had the same experience a few years back with French cars on the roads round a European mountain whose name escapes me but I think the particular driver I'm thinking of cooked his brakes after a great long downhill blast. The only thing that's stopping me doing something similar again soon is the price of petrol!

 

[Gary71]

Great road trip, pure driving for the hell of it. Fantastic.

When I was made redundant recently I took the time to strip the car for a repaint, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way!

 

[Richard Moore]

Taking redundancy seemed so much of an opportunity to me and the chance to do a big drive with the car was a no brainer in the end. I don't have family to worry about so I just pushed off with a sort of plan. I'm so glad I did it and so pleased with the car. It was great to drive and worked perfectly.