Motorway Madness

In these days of lockdown, we are all dreaming about the road trips we will take in the future and looking back at the great ones we did in the past. But I am even looking back fondly at the truly terrible road journeys.

And few come worse than driving every single mile of mainland UK motorway mile. All 2,300 of them, in high summer, in a Vauxhall Omega turbodiesel, with a manual gearbox, a ton of turbo lag and no air-conditioning. Photographer Morris Carpenter and I undertook that particular onerous and odious task for Top Gear Magazine.

Back in 1995, the Omega was the height of repmobile sophistication, and ours was something extra special, kitted out with a Trafficmaster to keep us advised of conditions on the route ahead. Navigating had to be done the old-fashioned way though, via a massive printout of directions supplied by the AA, who had calculated that to cover every motorway mile, we'd actually have to drive 3,170 miles, which we did, in 101 hours.

OK, it was hardly Moss and Jenks on the Millie Miglia in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, but it did feel quite an achievement at the time. And despite the long, laborious slog in a car that got hotter and smellier inside with every motorway mile, there were highlights.

We left London on a Sunday just after 11 pm and drove through the night. I remember the sun coming up as we headed back from the south coast towards the M25, listening to the news that Colin McRae had triumphed in his Subaru Impreza in New Zealand. That victory set him up to win the world title at the end of the year.

Crossing over the Severn bridge on the M4 in the late afternoon brought a strange mix of tiredness and euphoria. Cutting up through the Lake District at dawn on the M6 – quite possibly the most beautiful section of the entire UK motorway network – was a treat, as it always is even to this day. Cruising through the middle of Glasgow at midnight on the M8 had its gritty urban charm too.

To be fair to the Omega, with its large fuel tank and a 600-mile range, we just kept rolling and rolling. It was a pretty relaxed and quiet cruiser. But oh man, with no air-con and a near-to-useless ventilation system, it got so hot and stank to high heaven by the end.

We were both glad when it was over, and neither of us ever wanted to do anything like that again. Ever.

It's a long time ago 1995, but as Stephen King says, only if you measure it in years. Right now, with my car firmly, and quite rightly, parked on the driveway until lockdown ends, if I could go back in time and drive those 3,170 miles in that smelly old Omega with Morris again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  

Words Angus Frazer
Photography Ross Sneddon / Unsplash