Phil Robson
Well-Known Member
Something I did literally decades ago in my first TC was to go over Hard Knott & Wrynose passes in the Lake District & it's something I've wanted to do again at some point in a P6.
Now that our son has his modern classic, a Mk6 Fiesta ST500, & having seen a trip done by the Practical Classics team in the February 2023 edition, I suggested to him that we did the same. He was very keen!
All I had to do was to chose which car to take. TBH I would probably taken the Alfa, but I'm nowhere near that confident with it yet, so it had to be a P6. Whilst the longish drive over there would certainly have been a tad more relaxing in a V8, I really thought that a smaller engine would be more fun whilst there. Hence, I took OCC. It's very slightly tappety, but otherwise is in pretty good health. I did some servicing & bled new fluid through the brakes & that was it.
We drove from East Yorkshire last Wednesday, did Wrynose & Hard Knott, then did the other passes on Thursday (including Hard Knott, then Wrynose again) Clearly, these two are the most challenging & I would say doing Hard Knott from west to east is probably the hairiest bit of driving you'll do in the UK on public roads. Going through the steep & very sharp hairpin bends is great fun & quite an achievement. Foot to the floor stuff, but in first gear.... .
Here are a few pics. It's just not possible to park up on the really good bit - you'd be blocking the road & you'd need one 'ell of a handbrake! And I was stopped for the windscreen view
Now that our son has his modern classic, a Mk6 Fiesta ST500, & having seen a trip done by the Practical Classics team in the February 2023 edition, I suggested to him that we did the same. He was very keen!
All I had to do was to chose which car to take. TBH I would probably taken the Alfa, but I'm nowhere near that confident with it yet, so it had to be a P6. Whilst the longish drive over there would certainly have been a tad more relaxing in a V8, I really thought that a smaller engine would be more fun whilst there. Hence, I took OCC. It's very slightly tappety, but otherwise is in pretty good health. I did some servicing & bled new fluid through the brakes & that was it.
We drove from East Yorkshire last Wednesday, did Wrynose & Hard Knott, then did the other passes on Thursday (including Hard Knott, then Wrynose again) Clearly, these two are the most challenging & I would say doing Hard Knott from west to east is probably the hairiest bit of driving you'll do in the UK on public roads. Going through the steep & very sharp hairpin bends is great fun & quite an achievement. Foot to the floor stuff, but in first gear.... .
Here are a few pics. It's just not possible to park up on the really good bit - you'd be blocking the road & you'd need one 'ell of a handbrake! And I was stopped for the windscreen view