The Italian Job

This was going to be the big one, not only in distance travelled but an attack on the wallet. The proposals were to travel to Gabecci Mare south of Rimini for “MG by the Sea” week in mid May and then return via Venice and Austria to the MG “Pfingsttreffen” (Whitsuntide meeting) in Aschau Bavaria at the begining of June. As with all successfully planned operations the key was in the organisation. Mr Bridger and Charlie Crocker would have been proud of our proposals, although we did not plan to steal the gold bars being delivered to the Fiat factory. Having registered our interests with the Italian organisers in December 2005, together with our friends from Germany and Holland, all with MGBs, we decided to take the easier route down to Italy along with some thirty other MG owners, by booking the overnight sleeper from Dusseldorf to Verona with DB Autozug, the German Railway’s car carrier. This would save us two days travelling, plus hotels. We arrived in Verona late morning to 28 degrees and brilliant sunshine which boded well for the coming week. The first and possibly only mistake was to drive the 130 or so miles from Verona to Gabecci Mare by the taking the coast road, avoiding the autostrada, as Captain Bertorelli from Allo Allo would say “Wot a mistayka to mayka!” The journey took approximately eight hours on the worst surfaced roads I have ever encountered, with road works and traffic hold ups every ten miles or so. We eventually arrived at Gabecci Mare and registered with the organisers, receiving our “bag of goodies”, and later all 180 crews received the week’s briefing at a local hotel.

The only way to travel in Italy

Look mum no hands

Thinking that the various organised runs would be on tulip rules, we were suprised to find that we would be escorted by ten Polizia motorcycle outriders on the latest BMWs plus an historic Motto Guzzi motorcycle and an Alfa Romeo Gulia from the police museum. This together with local police support along the routes, gave us an extraordinary privilege of driving the whole week on closed roads, including the wrong way round roundabouts, the wrong way along one way streets and through all traffic lights held on stop. The police outriders were from an elite group from Rome whose duties include the Millemiglia, Tour de France and escorting Presidents/VIPs etc. The sight of these police outriders escorting 180 MGs with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing literally brought towns to a standstill. The convoy was 5km long and took approximately 15 minutes to pass a single location, however the Italian people were wonderful, school children were brought out of lessons to watch the procession, all traffic was stopped with the drivers standing outside their vehicles with cameras and applauding, including rush hour in Rimini. The organisers also provided a support breakdown truck, ambulance and bus at the rear of the convoy. In discussions later with other participants it was agreed that with the Italians love of motorcars there was no other country in Europe that could stage and enjoy such an automotive festival. To say that the police were wonderful would be an understatement, they stayed with us all week and everyone enjoyed their company at meal times and the Gala Evening at the weekend. With visits to several castles, Ferrari Museum, wine tasting evenings by coach and food extrvaganzas, the organisation team under the direction of Fabio Filippello was exceptional.

Watching me watching you

Dusseldorf station about to depart

Ouch

The boys in ‘Blue’

Montefiore Conca along the Millemiglia route

Old timers ready to go

The week passed quickly with participants heading home in all directions. We were heading north via Venice with an eight day stop over in Austria before attending the MG Pfingsttreffen in Aschau Bavaria. This was to be the culmination of a month on the continent enjoying MGs however it didn’t quite work out that way. Whilst driving through the two way Tauern Tunnel in Austria, which is 6km long, we were approximately 2km inside the tunnel when the traffic in front came to a standstill. We stopped along with the other traffic however a young lady in an Audi A3 travelling behind didn’t, the resulting damage altered the shape of the rear of the MG but it was still driveable, the Audi seemed to fare slightly worse, smashing the radiator and making it undriveable. Whilst the local Austrian police were quite helpful and fined her on the spot we wondered what the Italian police would have done seeing a classic car damaged. The thought of telling her she “was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off” wouldn’t have helped. Progress to the Pfingsttreffen in Aschau was helped by Peter Krejci the MGOC contact in Salzburg who was able to obtain some spare parts to keep the MG going.

Although the journey so far had included a great deal of positive involvement with the police in Italy and Austria, we thought that by now we had had our fair share, however this was not to be. On approaching our hotel in Austria, a policeman stepped into the road with a stop sign and instructed us to pull over. Were we speeding? Was the damaged MG contravening Austrian road regulations? On stopping the car the policeman bent down to the MG and asked if we understood German, which luckily both of us do, and proceeded to introduce about eighteen junior school children each carrying a home made signed card in the shape of an apple plus a fresh apple. As we had been driving within the speed limit we were presented with a card and an apple, we were thanked and told that if we had been speeding we would have received a lemon, now there’s an idea for the British Constabulary.

Our final thanks must go to our MG friends in Aschau who offered us help in keeping the car temporarily roadworthy and in particular MGOC member Thomas Becks from Solingen who sorted out the wiring problem after blowing ten 35amp fuses.

Martin Grant