Good news Neil - we also got stopped at this border, maybe UK cars being targeted....

They were pretty young officers but soon got into the swing when Ben showed them the mass photos in Piazza Castello

"Ah, cool..."

Perhaps we looked particularly like young football thugs.

FCCUK - Fiat Coupe Casuals UK on Europols most wanted list

Wow. What a few days in Turin! Meeting friends old and new. Our Italian friends did a great job organising this all.

Getting lost in convoys all part of the trip.

Lovely gala dinner and great souvenir of the trip.

Talked with lovely locals in Piazza Costello, finally meeting the wonderful Chris Bangle. Then the police escorted 110 cars round Turin annoying some locals.

Big lunch, with lovely wine that you could not drink as you were driving, at Santena.

Visited Milan for the Alfa Romeo museum on my free day. The Touring bodied cars were masterpieces.

Italian drivers on the whole were better than UK. Well disciplined in being in the appropriate lane, no cutting in at the last moment, but drive at some crazy speeds at times. One time I caught the bus into Turin, the drivers were excellent. No harsh braking or acceleration like in the UK.

Wandered round Turin. Very clean, hardly any rubbish in the historic center. Well worth another visit.

Filled up on way back with Q8 special 100 RON. Was E10. Commented if fuel had gold additive as over £2 a litre! Can ran fine, went up twisties as per below great.

Came back via Great Saint Bernard pass. OMGGG what views and road. Got a bit carried away clipping corners and got a toot from the police. Met a lovely Swiss couple with their Land Rover 110 at the top, 1983 vintage with the 2.2 petrol engine. Also a man from Roma with his son doing the mountain passes on a Vespa.

Sat nav took me towards Lausanne then the Nyon road to Saint-Cergue. More unbelievable twisties towards France. Afterwards a few crazy cycling support cars overtook me towards France. Think they were something to do with the women's tour.

Picked up a couple of fly hitchhikers as I stopped for a breather. They were finally relocated to Paris the next day. Hope they enjoy their holiday.

Stopped for a night at Chaumont, then to Paris outskirts for a day. Loads of traffic, badly maintained crash barriers on ring roads gave me confidence.

Unfortunately the Conservatoire Citroen was closed as it is moving, I believe. So I drove around for a bit. Around Le Bourget had been done up for the Olympics, but a little rough looking in places.

So, I went to the aerospace museum at Le Bourget airport. Well worth a visit if you like aviation pioneers and history of the Normandie Niemen. Plus 2 Concordes, space stuff and an A380.

Then back to reality via the tunnel.

Just filled up in Potsdam... brim to brim from the filling station outside the hotel, 876 miles, 94 litres. AKA 42.4mpg

And that included up and down the Gotthard pass and at least three hours averaging 100mph on the autobahn...

(We used to play a game in Paris: I Spy a Car With No Damage. Didn't see that many.)

1st things 1st

Thanks for your story

I'll plot your route on Google Earth.

Any more ?

Great times in Turin and the journey home. We opted to go back over the Grand St Bernard again as it was such fun the first time. A different drive going the other way, but the barriers were still missing in places!

We picked up a speeding ticket in near Lausanne; hopefully there aren't any more. We cut across France from Geneva at a fair rate of knots, with an overnight in Bourges by the School of Pyrotechnics and then on to Roscoff for some moules and cidre!

Nick & I had the best time. Coupe owners are a lovely bunch of people, except that Joe bloke who dragged us out until 04:00 for one drink only

Some great stories there peeps

Still meandering our way back and took a gamble doing the GSB ourselves as the weather wasn't the best but the forecast was spot on and dried up for us after lunch. Not gonna lie - 140 bhp under a heavy load of baggage n booze was a slow journey but the old girl didn't miss a beat

Surprising police pull on the Swiss side just over the summit and were stopping French and Italian cars but waved us through. Perhaps they didn't want to take the risk of us not starting again

<cough> flea chip <cough>

Can you chip a 16v Neil??

So Kathy and I are going to relocate to Wankdorf and insist the kids write to us every week just for the hell of it

My Route - There are some approximations as I did deviate off the route quite a lot but google won't allow too many push pins.
The actual mileage during our trip was just over 2300 miles.



Small Gallery

First of a few vids, no doubt...

30th anniversary Coupe Fiat

G Man Alan, mine needs hand starting these days.

Bob and Edinburgh, thanks for the map and video.
It does help us to relate to your adventures.

Anymore anybody ?

Paul

Indeed you can: talk to Leighton (flea). Mine's the car that he used to develop the chip (hence around +20bhp and excellent fuel economy).

Neil

Our route down, ignoring the bit from Worcester to Berlin

There are wiggly bits too small to show, and coming back we came the other (eastern) side of Lake Zug to save time - Lake Maggiore was very pretty, but slow - about 1250km each way.

Poor Dorf!

That’s great! And we made the cut

I had hoped to get more people pictures, I missed so many people.

On the Sunday I really suffered with the sun, I felt quite poorly so kept hiding in the shade. I almost passed out when we went to the lunch venue!

Hopefully Trish has captured more on video but I recorded everything in 4K and my laptop is struggling to work with the files. There is over 400gb of video data.

Trish...

Barmybob, so hot on Sunday I didn't recognise Chris Bangle wearing his Stetson!

I didn't recover until I managed to get into the bathroom and place my head under the tap, only then did I finally begin to cool down and feel better


Really impressed with how much time he devoted that day. Was however quite amusing to observe Nick following him around trying to steer him towards his LE. Mr B even had Nick taking pictures of himself with other Coupé owners.

It's fabulous he comes along, hope he's there next time, as if I have a Coupe with air conditioning will consider driving to the 35th.