Giro Di Sicilia 2016, Another European Road Trip Thread (Picture Heavy!) Options

[23e Heure]

As many of you showed a positive interest in another thread about our road trip to this year's Old-timer GP at the Nurburgring, I thought it worth sharing another one from earlier in the summer.

Let me start by warning that this one will be a long thread, with lots of pics of European exotics.

Can I also say that if any of it comes across as a bit smug, please don't judge...
That is not the aim: Just hope to give some vicarious pleasure to those on the other side of the pond (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


So this is how it started... Rewind 10 years to 2006.
I was just back from a trip to Sicily in my (now sadly sold) 2.4E, to attend that year's Targa Florio Centenary celebrations.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i13.photobucket.com-19057-1471633074.1.jpg)

6 weeks later I went to Le Mans Classic. Camped on the pitch next to us were 2 guys - Mike and Brendan - who had travelled to Le Mans in Mike's orginal 2.7 RS.

The conversation moved pretty quickly to dream road trips. Mike revealed that his RS was delivered new in 1973 to Palermo.
And that he harbored an ambition to one day take the car back 'home'.

2006 was also when I first met a UK car journalist and author, Johnny Tipler.
On scrutineering day for the Targa Florio in Sicily, I had blagged myself and the E into the paddocks.
When popping back to the car, I overheard the official at the gate arguing with two guys in a hire car, who were waving press cards and trying to gain entry.
They were clearly british hacks in need of help, so I pointed at my car and implied in broken Italian that they were my support vehicle.
Within short order Johnny and his photographer were thru the gates and parked next to me in the paddock.

Since those first meetings, year after year Mike has asked me "When are we going to go to Sicily together?", and Johnny has asked "When are we going back together?".

Fast forward to 2016, a decade on from the centenary, and finally all of our diaries sync-ed up so that we were able to make it happen.

And as a cherry on the cake, Johnny and I had been invited to participate in this year's Giro Di Sicilia. What better way to hark back to the days of yore...?

Drive your car the length of Europe. Once there, add some oil and adjust the tyre pressures, participate in a 3 day historic event.
And then drive the car all the way home again. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)

And so it was that we set off from the UK on the last Monday of May: Mike and Brendan in their black RS, myself in my green RS rep, meeting Johnny en route at Spa race track in Belgium.