Detour #88: Bologna or bust, Italy
Breathless tales of supercars flat-out across Europe were a rite of passage for motoring journalists back in the day. Dan Trent enjoys a memorable trip to Bologna in a Lamborghini for his own take.
The rock’n’roll swagger a generation of Australian journalists brought to car magazines in the 1970s and early 1980s resonates to this day in Top Gear and beyond. Tales of derring-do while ferrying supercars across Europe for photoshoots were a particular staple; a story written by Mel Nichols for Car in 1977 (and recently re-told in his book And the revs keep rising) a classic of the genre.
Titled Convoy!, it relates in exquisite detail a flat-out blast in a trio of Lamborghinis back from the Bologna factory, the photo of the Uracco’s speedo pinned at 160mph while Nichols chases the Countach and Silhouette across France proving it was all for real. Four decades later my chance to do the return trip comes with a last-minute call from Lamborghini to see if I want to drive its Italian-plated Hurácan press car back to the factory.
Of course I do.
For a brief moment I consider a straight-line blast south through Germany, over the Austrian Alps and to Bologna, on the basis I’m better off maxing the Hurácan on the Autobahn than chancing it with les flics these days. But reversing the route Nichols and his pals took by going across France, through the Mont Blanc tunnel and along the Aosta Valley into Italy is a temptation I can’t resist.
Like all good movies there’s nothing like an element of peril to spice up a road trip and mine comes with a very limited window of opportunity before the Lamborghini factory closes for Christmas. Thankfully I already know a great route across the Jura that will drop me onto Lake Geneva’s northern shore, from where I can loop round to Chamonix and the Mont Blanc tunnel. Then a spanner in the works – before I’m allowed into Italy the Hurácan needs winter tyres and I’ve been pre-booked into the Lamborghini dealership in Lyon to that end. It’s tight and I’ll have to forgo the Jura but if I can get that done by the afternoon of day one I should just catch the last of the light for a scenic blast across the hills between Chambéry and Annecy before an overnight in Chamonix.
With a long drive to Lyon I distract myself from the temptation to recreate that famous speedo photo with noisy, launch controlled eruptions from toll booths. Winter grime suits the Hurácan and, upon arrival, I give the stylishly polo-necked man on reception at Lamborghini Lyon strict instructions not to waste precious time washing it. He nods obligingly but when I see the car has left the service bay he explains he has sent it away to be valeted anyway, costing a precious hour of daylight I couldn’t really spare.
It’s then a race against time and – it turns out – a train on the back road to Annecy. It’s a joy to be off the motorway, the road clinging to the valley side and constantly ducking over and under the railway line as both snake into the hills. Seeing the train disappear into a tunnel and then racing through the hairpins in an attempt to catch it emerging at the other end is laugh-out-loud joy repeated several times as I make my way toward Annecy. I really, really hope there’s someone onboard the train enjoying the show.
A beer in off-season Chamonix inspires a bit of an Italian Job tangent and an early start to celebrate Lamborghini’s most famous – if fleeting – on-screen moment. Emerging from the Mont Blanc tunnel into the dawn gloom the Aosta valley has an air of menace, the mountains each side looming over the road and capped with a grey ceiling of cloud. I peel off up the Col du Grand St Bernard in search of the viaduct from the opening shot of the film, having bummed a cigarette as a prop for my little homage to Rossano Brazzi as the doomed, Miura-driving Beckerman. I only spot the bridge on the return from a snow-blocked attempt to take the ‘old’ road, the scene unfolding before me exactly as it does in the film’s opening moments. Only this time it’s me in the Lamborghini.
Money shot in the bag I check the distance to Bologna against the timings for my return flight. 250km in three hours looks tight but do-able. Then I look again. It’s miles, not kilometres. Oh hell.
Things get a bit Nichols in the speedo department as the Hurácan’s V10 bellows and I desperately claw back some time. I fuel to the finish on yet another tank full of super for the Lamborghini and necked espresso for me and, past Milan, it’s a straight line across the plains to Bologna and another race with a train. This time the high-speed line runs directly alongside the Autostrada for mile after mile and, when the Bologna express appears alongside me, temptation gets the better of me and I pin the accelerator. In my peripheral vision I snatch glimpses of the train in the gaps between the blurred wall of trucks to my right but my real attention is on the vanishing point perspective of the road ahead, praying no dawdling Punto emerges into my lane. Suffice to say, it’s not the espresso making my pulse race. After a good run I ease back and let the train go, honour satisfied and aware my luck can only hold out so long.
Not long afterwards I arrive outside Lamborghini’s reception, begging for a taxi to the airport while the hot air shimmers above the dirt-streaked Hurácan outside, its cabin strewn with bits of chocolate popcorn, empty coffee cups and general road trip detritus. Making my apologies to the politely bemused PR man I leg it for my plane, collapsing into my seat proud to honour the traditions of my trade. If you’re doing it yourself all I’d say is allow yourself a bit more time, and at least enjoy the chance to kick tyres in the on-site Lamborghini museum. And watch out for bulldozers in tunnels, obviously.