Why would anyone want to drive for miles and miles in a clapped out Vauxhall Astra?
Why indeed? Well not only do we get to go to places we have never been to before, meet people we would never have met, and argue with border guards who would otherwise have had a boring day. We also get to keep what is destined to become a classic car on the road for as long as possible. The renowned local mechanic Lord Pugh of Newtown once boasted that he could change the clutch in an Astra F during his lunch hour whilst eating a sandwich. The engineering makes for one of the most maintainable cars ever built and its entirely possible that the Isuzu diesel engine will confound archaeologists in millennia to come , surviving long after inferior Chelsea tractors and glorified milk floats have perished and faded to dust.
So the next trip begins Friday the 19th July 2024. Code named ‘Small Europe’ it will take in a fly by through Luxembourg and stop overs in Liechtenstein, Kosovo, San Marino, Monaco and Andorra. We will post regular updates below along with a route plot on the map. Hope you enjoy the content. We look forward to your comments.
The route so far, and roughly where we’re planning to go…
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Generalisations
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Mechanical Shenanigans
We all knew when we decided to take on this challenge of doing a tour of Europe with three thirty odd year old vauxhall Astras, that things could possibly go wrong…..Well it started almost straight away when i noticed that Alex’s car had a bit of a noise coming from the front wheel area..a bearing…
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When it all goes wrong
Only my third Intercontinental Astra trip, but one thing is clear – when it all goes wrong, it’s not all as bad as you might fear – most things are fixable – either because you’ve got some engineers on the trip, or because you’re quick to get some help in. Setting off on this trip…