Italian Road Trip

[FatBoy]

I drove my Kirkham to Italy a few months ago, along with a few friends in their Cobras. We covered around 2,500 miles in total and drove over some fantastic roads.

Here are a few in-car videos we shot along the way.

The first is the descent of the St Gotthard Pass in Switzerland:
https://youtu.be/xGuUfvNFAR8

The second is ascending the famous Stelvio Pass from Italy into Switzerland:
https://youtu.be/0k-eKe_EYbI

This one is descending the Umbrail Pass, which goes from the top of the Stelvio Pass down into Switzerland:
https://youtu.be/t0xc-vFPTZ0

And this one is the drive along the Northern edge of Lake Garda, which was the same road used in the opening sequence of the Bond movie Quantum of Solace:
https://youtu.be/o2-HIsgiuNE

Paul

[PeteF]

Fantastic. Thanks for sharing.

[wouter37]

Great videos

[FatBoy]

The Stelvio Pass was a Bucket List drive, but it wasn't a great driving road, being as it was 48 hairpin bends connected by short straights, but the scenery was spectacular.
The drive down the other side (Umbrail) was much better.

The Kirkham performed impeccably throughout and inspired great confidence on the challenging roads.

Paul

[xb-60]

Fantastic, Paul! Thanks for posting.
We did the Stelvio in Euro summer, 2013. Those right hand (in particular) hairpins are incredibly tight, and yes, what a view back down the valley when you get to the top!
As an aside, we were in Verona a couple of days later and I met John Kennedy there with his (1913) Radley Silver Ghost. In chatting, I mentioned that we had done the Stelvio Pass and he said that he had done it twice in the previous two days in his Radley Rolls!. This in a 100 year old car with no front brakes!
Yes, a great bucket list drive.

Cheers,
Glen

[Ron61]

Paul,

Those are fantastic videos and the scenery is just breath taking. That must have been a real thrill to get to drive those roads. Thanks for posting the videos.

Ron

[mdross1]

Wow! what views. We drive the White mountains hear in the Northeast they are molehills compared to Switzerlands. Thank you.

[FatBoy]

We drove down into Tuscany, which is Mille Miglia country and stayed there for a week, with runs out to places like Sienna and San Gimignano.

Sienna was interesting. I'd programmed the satnav to take us to what I thought was a car park close to the centre on the old city. We ended driving into the old city, which was packed with pedestrians and right into the Piazza deal Campo, which is where the famous Palio horse race is held. We caused quite a stir.

After Tuscany, we drove to Lake Garda following the Mille Miglia route. The area and roads around Garda are spectacular. The mountains fall vertically into the lake and the road either clings the the cliff face or tunnels through it and everyone with a Cobra knows that it's compulsory to drop a gear and floor it whenever you enter a tunnel.

Paul

[patrickt]

Super! Best thread this year.

[SunDude]

HOOO-BABY!! That must've been a FANTABULOUS Cobra drive!!

[rkm]

Did you drive to Italy or have the cars shipped?

[Cobrakeith]

Wow! That is great video of great Cobra roads and spectacular scenery. Thanks for sharing.

[HTM101]

The best Cobra-related story and adventure I've seen in a long while. You're a top-shelf Cobra enthusiast!

David

[hinoonaz]

Great videos and the sound was excellent. Was that a Cobra being held going the opposite direction on the first video? Some minds want to know!

[FatBoy]

Originally Posted by rkm

Did you drive to Italy or have the cars shipped?

Hi,

Thank you for the overwhelming positive comments.

We drove down to Italy over two long days via Holland, Germany and Switzerland and then back again via Switzerland and France.

The car being held in the tunnel was a Caterham 7.

We had 6 Cobras (5 X 289's and my 427), a '67 Mustang and a Morgan Plus8 in our group.

A couple of the 289's run on Webers and they struggled a bit with the altitude on the high passes, but other than that we have no real problems. The cars attracted huge amounts of attention wherever we went (especially in Sienna, which was quite embarrassing really )

I've just started planning next year's trip, which will probably be to Spain.

I've got more videos if you'd like to see them.

Paul

[Bernica]

Originally Posted by FatBoy

The mountains fall vertically into the lake and the road either clings the the cliff face or tunnels through it and everyone with a Cobra knows that it's compulsory to drop a gear and floor it whenever you enter a tunnel.

Paul

Who doesn't like tunnels? And this is the ultimate road trip to me. Great job.
Garda video was my favorite. Thanks for sharing!

[mate]

Originally Posted by FatBoy

I've got more videos if you'd like to see them.

Paul

Yes Please

[FatBoy]

Here are a couple more. The first one is on our way down as we get close to our destination, we decide to get off the Autostrada and go cross-country for a while. But the sun is heading towards the horizon and progress is slow, so we have to head back to the motorway again. The second is another stretch of road along Lake Garda.

https://youtu.be/pn3Ye_HgeRY

https://youtu.be/YFb0Roldons

This was the first time we'd been to Italy and we were completely bowled over by it. We'll definitely be going back.

I've organised a number of events for our small group now, but the Italian trip was the most ambitious so far.

Paul

[twobjshelbys]

How does your insurance work? A few years ago a group went over from the US and shipped their cars, mostly Mustangs and 2 Ford GTs. At that time people whined about the cost of shipping. Now some people are looking at bringing their cars over for Le Mans this summer, and finding that the cost of insurance is 10K-15K for 7 days. A trip similar to the first one was canceled last year for insurance costs too.

[FatBoy]

Hi Tony,

My insurance covers me for European travel, so that wasn't an issue.

We'll be at Le Mans in July for the Classic, so if anyone here is going, let me know and we can arrange to meet up somewhere. Shipping costs have come down massively recently due to huge over-capacity in the market.

Paul