Auto Italia
Sep. 24th, 2007 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brrmYesterday, I went to the Auto Italia event at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon with my dad.
This included an outing onto the test track used by Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover. While the whole track is around 30 miles (!), we were on a section that was quite a bit shorter, for three laps. Quite a different experience from going on the Hockenheimring. While the Hockenheimring has lots of exciting twists and loops, the Gaydon track has long sweeping banked corners - which are still fun to take at speed, but sadly don't look as exciting in the video. We were started out at an average pace by the pace car, and as we were so well behaved, speeds crept up over 110mph (again, hard to tell from the video ;-) ).
Then, after the track outing, we wandered round the assembled Italian cars, and the Heritage museum.
Photo highlights:
Not your usual Alfa Romeo
4x4 Fiat Panda, with integral tent
Bisected MGB GT - fascinating to me, but probably less so to others.
A replica of the first car, the Benz
The first ever Morris Minor - they put out adverts to find the earliest production Morris, to put in the museum, and the lucky winner would receive a brand new Minor Million - and they ended with the first one off the line!
A rather sleek MG prototype predating the MGF, that never made it into production
The Lamborghini Miura, still one of the sexiest things on 4 wheels.
One of the 4-wheel drive Mini Mokes, using two engines, one at the back and one at the front. And, amusingly, two gearsticks. One for front, one for back. Each with 4 gears and reverse. Head hurts now.
The Road Rover, possibly one of the earliest SUVs ;-)
And finally, yours truly, with my shiny car
The whole set resides here, and there is also the video of my track run [93MB MPEG-1, so probably only for the masochistic or very bored].
This included an outing onto the test track used by Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover. While the whole track is around 30 miles (!), we were on a section that was quite a bit shorter, for three laps. Quite a different experience from going on the Hockenheimring. While the Hockenheimring has lots of exciting twists and loops, the Gaydon track has long sweeping banked corners - which are still fun to take at speed, but sadly don't look as exciting in the video. We were started out at an average pace by the pace car, and as we were so well behaved, speeds crept up over 110mph (again, hard to tell from the video ;-) ).
Then, after the track outing, we wandered round the assembled Italian cars, and the Heritage museum.
Photo highlights:
Not your usual Alfa Romeo
4x4 Fiat Panda, with integral tent
Bisected MGB GT - fascinating to me, but probably less so to others.
A replica of the first car, the Benz
The first ever Morris Minor - they put out adverts to find the earliest production Morris, to put in the museum, and the lucky winner would receive a brand new Minor Million - and they ended with the first one off the line!
A rather sleek MG prototype predating the MGF, that never made it into production
The Lamborghini Miura, still one of the sexiest things on 4 wheels.
One of the 4-wheel drive Mini Mokes, using two engines, one at the back and one at the front. And, amusingly, two gearsticks. One for front, one for back. Each with 4 gears and reverse. Head hurts now.
The Road Rover, possibly one of the earliest SUVs ;-)
And finally, yours truly, with my shiny car
The whole set resides here, and there is also the video of my track run [93MB MPEG-1, so probably only for the masochistic or very bored].
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Date: 2007-09-24 12:28 pm (UTC)The MG prototype looks cool. Love the curves.
Two engines and two gearsticks? o_O