It’s been awhile since we last checked in with our friends over at the Asphalt Heritage Club, so let’s see what they’ve been up to lately. From Amaury, the Club’s leader-in-chief:
We just got back from England after driving 2000km from Bourges to Newcastle, where we bought a Rolls and an Alpina E30, both RHD. Concerning the RHD, you really can get used to it, and after one hour of driving you can heel-and-toe quite easily. The only tricky thing is putting it into fifth gear; don’t really know why— maybe that’s just mental!
However, driving in England is clearly dangerous when you’re used to driving on “the right side”— particularly when arriving at a traffic circle, when you begin to turn right and face three cars coming at you! Also, on the motorway, the English drive very slowly, like 60 mph, and there’s always a lot of cars— always!
The weather sucked, we had a lot of fog and rain, and the E30 was sliding in 4th gear as the tires were crap!
The Rolls was near Nothingham, in a creepy garage where lots of trucks and vans were being sold. The atmosphere was really strange, but we got a good deal (the seller did not know a thing about what he was selling), even if the car stopped every 30 minutes on the way back home. There’s probably an ignition problem with it.
The E30 is entirely stock, and was very clean. It drove perfectly on the return trip. The only bad side might be its really long gears, but we will change that very soon.
These images by Asphalt’s Clément Daventure:
Oh and of course, Amaury’s story reminded us when Alpina themselves decided to shoot one of their cars and a Rolls together, resulting in one of our favorite shots 😀
Follow Amaury, Clément and co. at asphaltheritage.tumblr.com or on the face book.
Motoring Con Brio 