Bought an excellent second hand book - Cape Cold to Cape Hot by Richard Pape. Its 1956 and Pape recounts a drive from Norway to South Africa in an
Austin A90; great reading worth a fiver of anyone's money.
In the pub tonight thoughts turned to replicating the journey under C21 conditions in a Rover 45 perhaps...?!....wonder if the journey is still possible given the current state of politics in certain countries.
Anybody interested in giving it a spin ?
|
Interested, certainly. Although would depend on when.
But a Rover 45 ?
|
|
|
|
OK then....what about an MG ZS180 then?
|
|
|
Years since I read it but I think they had to change their planned route because of politics at the time. It was that journey which I think was undertaken as a publicity stunt for Austin Motors and I also have a suspicion it has been recreated sometime in the 80s or 90s. Only real alterations to the original route I can see (without digging out my copy) is to drive down through Jordan and ship across to Kenya rather than attempt the Eritrea/Ethiopia/Sudan passage. A 75 estate would carry most of the bits needed.
I collect these old books about epic car journeys. If you fancy something slightly shorter, how about emulating the team from the AA which took a Ford Zodiac to Timbuctoo when the Mark IV version was a new motor. They had surprisingly few problems but like many people were a bit disappointed when they reached that place beloved of post-war schoolboys.
Or the 2CV crew touring South America who crossed the Atacama Desert with no oil in the engine. Allegedly they stuffed it full of bananas but quite where they obtained these from is not so clear.
David
|
I think it was the gearbox they shoved bananas into?
Andrew
>
> Years since I read it but I think they had to change their
> planned route because of politics at the time. It was that
> journey which I think was undertaken as a publicity stunt for
> Austin Motors and I also have a suspicion it has been
> recreated sometime in the 80s or 90s. Only real alterations
> to the original route I can see (without digging out my copy)
> is to drive down through Jordan and ship across to Kenya
> rather than attempt the Eritrea/Ethiopia/Sudan passage. A 75
> estate would carry most of the bits needed.
>
> I collect these old books about epic car journeys. If you
> fancy something slightly shorter, how about emulating the
> team from the AA which took a Ford Zodiac to Timbuctoo when
> the Mark IV version was a new motor. They had surprisingly
> few problems but like many people were a bit disappointed
> when they reached that place beloved of post-war schoolboys.
>
> Or the 2CV crew touring South America who crossed the Atacama
> Desert with no oil in the engine. Allegedly they stuffed it
> full of bananas but quite where they obtained these from is
> not so clear.
>
> David
|
Absolutely right, Andrew. Don't know what I was thinking of there. Even 2CVs would be hard pushed to lubricate much with mashed banana in the engine. Easier to get them in than stuffing them in the gearbox though. I'll try to find the reference in my Citroen bits and pieces but I could never put desert and passing Indian with a bunch of bananas together. Those little gearboxes are pretty tough though. My phone was red hot years back when I advertised a Dyane 4 with one working cylinder but the gearbox prized by 2CV cross racers.
David
|
|
|
|
|
Anyone read/have a copy of First Overland by Tim Slessor, the story of the Oxcam expedition London to Singapore 1955/6 in two SWB Landrovers? A splendid read in the days when this sort of thing was still possible through Burma etc. This book inspired my cousin and I to attempt our epic Brighton-Kathmandu trip in a 95 quid Bedfor CA ex-potato van in 1965. Had one puncture (on the last day before we sold it in Nepal) using remoulds which as I recall cost about 6 pounds each, one airlock in Yugoslavia and that was all. Across the Iran and Afghan deserts the temp stayed in the red all the time but it didn't seem to matter. Subsequent to that I made numerous trips across that route 1966-70.
|
Growler
Got my spare copy sitting on the filing cabinet after I rescued it from the mice in the garden shed. Just looked in it and realise I have a picture of my own car taken in almost exactly the same spot as their Landie with Krak des Chevaliers in the background. One of the most interesting bits I thought was the story of the Nairn buses which were articulated mail/passenger coaches which ran across the desert from Baghdad to Damascus. The Nairn brothers (Kiwis) built these 17 ton vehicles in Damascus from bought-in components and ran them more or less continuously at over 50 mph when possible across the desert.
For the Landie people the vehicles used by the Oxcam expedition were SNX 891 and SNX 761 which were supplied by Rover. The team were Tim Slessor, Adrian Cowell, Barrington Brown, Henry Nott, Nigel Newbery (the only one from Oxford) and Pat Murphy.
David
|
|
|
|
Mr. P. Ugly,
Michael Palin did the following a little while ago...
1 Greenland (Denmark)
2 Norway
3 Finland
4 U.S.S.R. (as it was)
5 Turkey
6 Greece (Rhodes)
7 Cyprus
8 Egypt
9 Sudan
10 Ethiopia
11 Kenya
12 Tanzania
13 Zambia
14 Zimbabwe
15 South Africa
16 Chile (via Brazil)
17 Antarctica
Ignoring 1, 16 & 17 I guess that's the journey you are talking about.
Although he didn't use cars the whole way. It took him & his 8 man crew five months for the whole thing.
Try this...
campus.fortunecity.com/college/0/palin_pole_genera...l>Difficult Journey Stuff
|
|
|
|
First Overland was probably the first "adult" book I ever read when I was knee high to a stack of 1968 set of Stone's. I blame it for my love of all things automotive including my chosen route through my career. It would be one of my choices on a notional Desert Island, now which box is it in ....?
|
|
|
Mark,
I remember this programme, wasn't it a follow up to the brilliant Around the World in 80 days......but it seem to lose its way and got very very boring...
Must read all the threads before answering.
|
|
|
Pugugly,
Can you e-mail me please. Address as above.
Ta.
Mark.
|
|
|
>>I remember this programme, wasn't it a follow up to the brilliant Around the World in 80 days......but it seem to lose its way and got very very boring...
It exactly was a follow up to the 80 days.
Sadly, I have to agree it got boring. It all seemed to get very contrived and after a while seemed that it was as adventurous for Michael Palin as it would be for any post parcel being shipped around the world. Especially the bit going down the the South Pole, which is all somewhat of a cockup and last minute repair.
However, I like Palin and the early parts of the series was very enjoyable.
Did you see the Around the World in 80 Days series ? I never saw a single episode, but the reviews all made it sound good.
|
|
E mailed you as requested. Yes my wife bought me the boxed set on VHS one year. Cracking travel show especially the scene with the Russian Choir.....!
|
|
|
|
Forget the guy's name, and the title of his book, but I read the account of his attempt on the american continent from north to south in an Austin (or was it s to n?).
Apparently the factory were abuot to sponsor him, assuming he'd go in the new Champ, but understsandably pulled out when they discovered he was determined to take an obsolete Austin 7.
It seems in one remote mountain region somewhere in South America, passender cars were almost unknown, and avillager was intrigued by this "truck for one person".
He was advised by knowing locals to wait until nigthfall to tackle one pass, because they feared that without the protection offered by his headlights, the convoys of trucks would round blind bends and not be able to avoid knocking him off the mountain.
|
|
|
A fiver, pugugly? My mother once came home from a church jumble sale and presented me with a motoring epic for which she had paid five pence.
It was cheap for a reason, though.
I do remember the title of this one: The World At Their Feet. Young guy fancied doing a round the world trip by motorcycle and set off with a companion who he had met through a personal add in The Times, who had'nt yet passed his test when he replied.
I was riveted, so much so that didn't notice that the whole of the finale of the ride, the traversing of Australia, had been torn out.
|
|
|
|
Great to hear a copy still exists!! I lost mine in a house move. Yes I remember that pic,
|
|
|
|
Thos Nairn buses were something to see, roaring in out of the desert, covered in sand, and sighing to a halt with a great whoosh of air brakes. Whoops, nostalgia trip coming.......
|
|
|
Growler,
I'm sure many wish that our motoring exploits were as colourful as yours.
On a more prosaic note, I had noticed that the Primera was starting to smell of doner kebab. Cheapskate that I am, I put my name down on the Mini site for a free Mini-shaped air freshener. However, the fragrance and existing aroma reacted together to produce an unfortunate result that SWMBO - who had apparently quite got used to the ambience of takeaway - was most scathing about, and for which your Japanese *Ars Fumigator* would probably be the only appropriate product.
"Bono"
PS Happy Holidays (or business trip, or whatever it is brings you to England - Now that April's there, etc.)
PPS Anyone considering a UK distributorship for Ars, contact Growler.
|
|
|
Yes the Japanese are seriously into airfresheners. It appears to be one of their many fetishes, which cultural analysts make so much of and attribute airily and sonorously to years of cultural isolation, the karoshi (overwork) syndrome and having to deal with Shinjuku station in the rush hour after a bad night with the lads at the yakitori bar followed by a session vomiting in the karaoke salon. I can tell you that Concorde,our local motor store, which is huge, (would you believe number plate surrounds in chrome with purple flashing lights following each other round the outside?) stocks fully a whole double-sided supermarket size aisle of different air "fresheners". These appear to range from (I can't read Kansai script" Cherry Blossom in Springtime), thru 14 Years Old Schoolgirl, to something I can only describe as "Air de Locker Room". Believe me, the combination of this lot when one is wandering the place is nothing less than war on on the olfactories.
Many of these confections find their way into Bangkok taxis. Mind you, almost anything is better than 100% unadulterated Bangkok taxi, especially on one's way home in the small hours.
It's time for a serious psychological treatise on what people do to their cars and why. Perhaps someone more competent than I can work on it.
And yes, I am willing to be a supplier of "ARS" to anyone in UK who feels there is an opening for it.
|
|
|
Sorry, Kanji script, before someone picks me up on it. Kansai is of course Osaka's airport in the middle of the ocean, which actually floats -- this is so big it can be seen from outer space. Not many people know that.
Motoring motoring. Yes: I shall indeed be in UK for a mix of social and business and I hope to be able to tell you all how lucky you are to have the motoring conditions you do, with some examples. (It is of course SOP for all expats to rant on about It's Tough In The Tropics etc. Now where the hell's that housemaid? It's 7 p.m. already and she hasn't washed my truck or the other two cars yet, and I need some more ice for my drink....)
|
|
|
