Crash Test Dummies did Italy, Italian Job style

[Tom Hartley]

Eight Triumphs set off for a trip to Italy (one died with a blown up engine before we went and was substituted by a classic Mini)

 

We went down by sleeper train with the cars on board, dashed down for a swim in the Med then up to Turin for the first night at the legendary Linghotto ex-Fiat factory hotel with the equally legendary rooftop test track

 

I am afraid I cannot go into details of how we managed to coerce our way up there but we managed to get a drive on the roof (photographic proof that I didn't just dream this is attached, as even I can't really believe it really happened)

 

We then went on to do the Lake Como, Stelvio, classic car museums, wicked driving roads that it would have rude to pass up on, but the rooftop drive was the highlight

 

tom

PS more photos will, I'm sure, follow

[docwad]

i love north italy and the roads

 

Sounds like an  excellent trip

 

Would this be upscaleable to spa classic type  numbers  ?? and would anyone in tssc  take on organisation of such

how much was the train??

how much would the whole shebang with good hotels cost?

 

jealous++

[mishmosh]

What doc said !

[Clive]

I doubt it in all honesty. Takeup is likely to be small, and the costs significantly higher too. Especially if the sleeper train was used! Plenty of classic tour operators out there, or organise a group yourself? If Tom and co can do it (absolutely no disrespect, I KNOW it takes time and effort to organise people, especially going from interested to actually paying) there is no reason you couldn't? I suspect something "unusual" happened to gain the roof access, so don't bank on that.

Besides, other Triumph clubs organise European trips, I am doing one in September that lasts 5 days and covers a number of countries, some of which we have not yet been told about!

[Tom Hartley]

We used the 'autoslaaptrein' from Hertogenbosch in the bottom right hand corner of Holland all the way to Alessandria which is €359 for the car and €109 per person for the couchettes (posher options are available; also, we got a reasonable discount on this list price because we had 16 people and 8 cars). Dinner in the dining car was superb.

 

Could it be scalable to Spa sort of numbers? Yes, but we'd have to drive back (like we did). Basically the train is fully booked going down at the start of the summer and fully booked coming home at the end (when we went) which means they are desperate for bookings the other way, like we did.

 

Because we drove back there was 2000 miles of petrol, hotels, food, more than the occasional beer and bottle of wine etc and a ferry back. It was definitely over four figures per car and was probably more than a 10CR trip (if you've done one of those) but I'm trying hard not to add it up 

 

Access to the Linghotto roof was a mixture of concerted effort, extreme attempts at charm (google translate was my friend; the attempts at italian were warmly received) and a huge dose of luck. I refused to take no for an answer, basically: I was told it was not possible by the hotel and then building security people who they put me onto, and then I heard that another Triumph group were attempting it and they couldn't get permission. I found that the decision is made by the security people (we found later that they're not your UK security types - these guys have very snappy uniforms and GUNS). I befriended one of the guys by email and discussed what was and wasn't possible. When we left for Italy it was not possible, but we thought we might try one last attempt with a few well placed gifts. Note that this WILL NOT WORK unless you're more canny than I as I now know it may well backfire in your face - the guy who helped us almost reached for his weapon when I insisted, after the event, he take a small gift we'd offered him! The decision was actually made by the security boss the evening we arrived when we tried to sweet talk the security guys; they rang him and to their obvious surprise (and ours) he agreed. I can only put this down to the reasonably long exchange of emails I had had, and the fact that I'd taken the trouble to translate it into Italian (he didn't speak any English - why would he need to).

 

Is access to the roof repeatable? No, probably not in the way that we did it because, as I say, a huge part of it was pure luck (even if I did have to work hard to make a fair bit of that luck). Have other car clubs tried and failed? Oh yes - we had our photos taken by a German guy staying in the hotel who had tried with his car club (Alfa Romeos I think) to get on the roof and wasn't able to - there were almost tears in his eyes as he told us - made our success feel all the more special. Could it be managed by the club? Yes, just possibly, but there would probably be a fee to make it above board; I got the feeling the guys who took us up were doing this because the boss was doing us a personal favour, and this would probably not work for a larger group. However, a fee would be managable if split between a fair few cars.

 

We went on from this extreme highlight of my driving days to wander past the Italian lakes (we SO should have spent more time there) and on to Bormio for the Stelvio (again, we rather rushed that bit) and a fabulous private tour of a private motor museum in Basel that was organised by one of our group. Rush rush rush - I have huge respect for the guys from the other club who sort out the 10CR - we underestimated most journey times and left the wives and girlfriends with very little shopping/restaurant time. That was basically the deal they'd been promised and was the deal we'd actually planned and looked forward to: leisurely gadding about in the alps, but we ballsed it up. Fantastic driving; awesome driving; memorable driving; cars cars cars. Don't get me wrong: it was truly great. But we didn't manage the leisurely trip we'd been after; one that might entice the girls into coming with us more often.

 

I'm happy to relay my knowledge and experience to anyone who's planning this sort of trip, whether it's just you, a group of mates or the whole club, so please feel free to message me if you want