Matthew,
You are correct about the speedo drive gear. I have a Voigts Sierra five speed box, which uses the standard blue drive gear. I’d recommend this conversion to anybody considering a five speed.
Because Sean Murray put the idea in my head I’ll tell everybody about my summer driving adventure…
As a child I was fascinated by the hairpin bends on the alpine road along which Auric Goldfinger travelled in his Phantom III followed by James Bond in his DB5. Back then in the 60s I believed that the road they used was the northern approach to the Stelvio Pass in Italy and from then I wanted to drive that road myself. (The road in the movie is in fact the northern approach to the Furka Pass, between Realp and Tiefenbach, in Switzerland.) The Stelvio Pass is the second-highest paved pass in the Alps (2757 metres, 9045 feet), after the Col de l?Iseran (2770 metres, 9088 feet). It was built in 1820 ? 25 for the Austrians by an engineer named Carlo Donegani. It has twelve hairpins on the southern approach, and forty eight on the northern.
Early this year I decided to stop thinking about this drive and just go and do it in my 1967 Lotus Elan. My oldest friend, Tony, who lives near London, agreed to come with me.
Well, a forty year old car with about 200,000 miles on it can?t be expected to tackle a journey like that without some preparation. Since April 2008 I had the cylinder head, driveshafts, suspension, and brakes re-built, and fitted a new distributor and electronic ignition, as well as new tyres. In went LHD headlamps and with a final general check I decided that it was time to go — and off I went on September 6th.
The start was inauspicious — the fast ferry sailing from Dublin to Holyhead was cancelled because of a few little hurricanes here and there, so I had to use the slow ferry. The drive to my pal’s house in Hatfield was awful — the rain was torrential, and the speedo stopped working.
We set off at 4:30AM on Sunday the 7th of September and used Eurotunnel, arriving in Calais at 7:00AM. After refuelling on coffee, croissants, and petrol we were on our way south — in more torrential rain! The car was behaving well. After 322 miles driving we settled on a hotel in Langres, which is an old fortified town on a hill, and was the birthplace of Dennis Diderot (October 5, 1713 ? July 31, 1784) a French philosopher and writer. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment, his major contribution being the Encyclop?die. Who says I’m not cultured?
On Monday we headed off the Mont Blanc Tunnel — 252 miles away. The weather was just as bad as the previous day and progress was slow. We had a minor hiccup on this leg when the passenger door window glass fell off its retainer and slid down inside the door. Two folded-up map covers wedged in solved that. Old cars make you think creatively! We arrived tired in Chamonix Mont Blanc at about 5:30PM and booked into a hotel.
On Tuesday we emerged from the Mont Blanc tunnel into sunshine in Italy. In Courmeyeur we made a small deviation of about 5 miles from our route to La Thuile to visit the tunnel where the Lamborghini Miura was destroyed by a bulldozer in The Italian Job. The tunnel has been lengthened since 1969 and a new portico built, and so looks a bit different. But it was fun finding it!
We drove on to Menaggio on the west side of Lago di Como. I bought a satellite navigation device (my first) just for this trip, and encountered one of those events that I had believed to be apocryphal. Although instructed to guide us to Menaggio the satnav led us off the main road near Aosta, and we trustingly (ha ha…) followed the instructions. We were guided into a small town right up a narrow cul-de-sac where it instructed us to do a U-turn and to follow the whole route back to the main road! Someone, somewhere, has a sense of humour.
With intimidatingly heavy traffic we did not get to Menaggio till about 5:00PM and I noticed that the water temperature needle had gone off scale! I pulled in immediately, and discovered that my electric water pump had stopped working. I had been watching the temperature gauge like a hawk since leaving home, and I was satisfied that the failure had happened only a minute or two before I spotted it. It took us about half an hour to pin the problem down to a blown fuse. Dirty and sweaty, but relieved, we were on our way again. We checked in to our hotel and cleaned up. The town was pleasantly quiet, the evening balmy, and we enjoyed a wonderful meal overlooking the lake.
Wednesday 10th — the big day: destination Stelvio Pass. We left late. The weather was perfect but the traffic was surprisingly heavy and slow, and we did not reach the southern approach road until well into the afternoon. The climb from Bormio, at about 3900 feet altitude, to the pass is 13 miles long with climb of 5145 feet — an average incline of 1 in 13. We were just less than half way up the approach road and in the only tunnel on the route, the Galleria del Rustella, when I noticed smoke entering the cabin from the passenger footwell. I thought that the clutch was burning, but I was relieved to discover that it was only the passenger carpet that had been set alight by the high temperature of the exhaust manifold. I used my dry powder fire extinguisher which managed to cover the interior of the car with white powder but did nothing to extinguish the smouldering carpet and felt, which I ripped out and threw in a pool of water. This episode lost us about an hour. I now plan to plumb in two AFFF extinguishers, and to insulate the exhaust manifold. Only one car stopped to offer help, a Lotus Esprit. Eighty five million bikers just drove by.
Now this is where many will think me sacrilegious. The southern approach to the pass was a good Lotus-driving experience, but the northern descent — the 48 hairpin leg — was a disappointment. The turns are so tight, the straights between them so short, and the incline so steep that it was similar to fast manoeuvring in a multi-storey car park — not what I call real driving. The six trillion bikers on this leg did not help as they seemed to think that the road was one way and that they owned the full width of it.
We stayed for the night at a hotel in Mustair in Switzerland, and were away early the following morning — on a real Lotus road. The road west from Mustair along the valley is a truly beautiful drive, a wonderful curving two lane blacktop towards Zernez, and then onwards to Klosters.
We reached Basel and more rain, rain, rain. My wife telephoned me to tell me that Channel Tunnel was closed because of a fire. The journey was hard going with heavy traffic and roadworks and we at last found a hotel in Clermont-en-Argonne at about 8:45PM, after a drive of 425 miles.
Friday 12th. With the Channel Tunnel closed we were expecting that there would be a heavy demand for ferry places, and so we pressed on to Calais, 230 miles distant. It was rainy most of the way, but became sunny towards the afternoon. We had no trouble getting a ferry, and were back in Hatfield at about 8:00PM. Near Dover we saw the southbound carriageway of the M20 being used as a parking lot for lorries unable to travel on the Channel Tunnel. HGVs were parked nose to tail on the hard shoulder and in the fast lane for a full ten miles! I estimated that there were about 1500 lorries parked. I felt sorry for them — what a life!
I had planned on going to the Lotus factory in Hethel for their 60th birthday celebrations on Sunday the 14th but I was tired and decided to head home, where I arrived at 6:10AM on Sunday.
Next time I do a trip like this I will take more time doing it. I fulfilled a childhood ambition, and I’m glad I did it. I drove 2347 miles in a week (about equal to the total mileage driven in the Lotus in the previous four years). My little Elan proved how good it is, performing well in modern traffic on such a demanding trip, returning 30.6mpg. And I did not fall out with my travelling companion!
Here’s a photo of the Elan with Mont Blanc visible to the south during the only dry bit of the journey through France.
Regards,
John Larkin