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Nothing handles like a rental - Stelvio hoon !


theduisbergkid
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Been a busy chap lately, here's one of the reasons why...

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I was in two minds about writing about this place. On one hand, there is a risk of everybody doing it and it turning into a bank-holiday Monday at the ‘ring, but on the other hand, it is simply too good not to share. I’ll be doing it again for sure. Promise not to tell ? OK then, you know how they say, ‘nothing handles like a rental’ ? Well...

A £50 flight from what Ryanair calls London to what Ryanair calls Milan, £3 for what Ryanair calls coffee and £60 for 24 hours in a hirecar with all insurance boxes ticked gets you to the Stelvio pass (and more). Play your cars [sic] right and the rental company will give you a cheeky Fiat 500, instead of the usual Chevrolet fodder. After a last-minute row with the missus, and playing my trump card “Waste of money ? You own 150 pairs of shoes !”, there I was, zipping along an Autostrada with co-pilot Dr Darryl Octane and 5 identical cars driven by mates in close formation. Grinning.

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Bormio is a town c.2 hours drive north of what Ryanair calls Milan and sits at the foot of the Stelvio pass. The pass itself is well signposted and the road started promisingly, 2 lanes, decent tarmac and no traffic as we approached from the south, the only traffic being the odd battered Piaggio Ape moped/van thingy. Signs warn of ‘Turnati’ meaning hairpins, you crick your neck looking up/round the turns, 2nd gear corners becoming 1st gear corners, 4th/5th gear becoming completely redundant and you climb higher. The road begins to narrow, rusty Armco on one side, mountain on the other, through dingy tunnels making good use of lights and horn. The CD had the obligatory Matt Monroe disc playing, but in Italian fashion, it stopped working for no reason. The last section climbing Stelvio from the south is stunning, short straights, 180 degree corners and breathtaking views. The temperature drops and curves become consecutive switchbacks, the Fiat screaming like an Italian footballer kicked in the knackers. Maybe we were lucky but we didn’t get stuck behind anyone/thing, the sun shone, we had this heavenly bit of mountain to ourselves.

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The hairpins eventually straighten out across a plateau on the top, we stretched the Fiat up through the gears until finding a cow in the road (!), out braking to overtake a local (1.2 Fiat trumping 4.0 Jeep), finally pulling into a little car park at the top. The view is simply stunning from up there, after an impromptu snowball fight and a Würst, we started the descent heading north. This was bloody hard work, the Fiat’s brakes very quickly overheating and after a mile or two, we turned round and headed back over the top, and down the south face back towards Bormio. The smoking brakes completely gave up halfway down, so we grabbed some pictures against one of the countless stunning backdrops. The CD player decided to start working again. The beauty of the surrounding snow capped mountains cannot be adequately captured on camera, but we went for the driving, not just sight-seeing.

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The previous night on the way there we’d taken a diversion over the Foppa pass (confusingly also called the Mortirolo pass) which is heavily wooded, occasionally gravelly and huge fun. On the way back we planned to take another diversion via the lesser-known Gavia pass which starts a short drive away from Bormio. The way up was easy enough, some typically tight hairpins through the trees bringing you out on a wide barren plateau above the tree-line, with a glacier as backdrop and roads similar to Snake pass (complete with stray rubble on apexes and the odd death-wish biker). We stopped again at an Italian war memorial to take in the views and let the Fiats catch their breath.

It is difficult to find the words to describe the next stage, the words on the in-car video are almost exclusively expletives, the Bond theme ‘you only live twice’ playing in the background.... As we bounced at speed across the top of the plateau in the 500’s, we came to the top of the descent, the first hairpin had the usual rusty Armco but the straights generally had only the odd kerbstone. As passenger for this leg (I had done the drive up), I was looking at a few inches of fractured tarmac and a drop down into the misty clouds below. The road down is just 1.5 cars wide and had some longish straights, making it too easy to build up some speed and forget the brakes are nuked. The exits of corners are often missing kerbstones, leaving a nice Fiat-sized gap with cold mountain air as your run-off. How we squeezed past a German camper van crawling up the road without putting two wheels over the edge I’ll never know. I could smell their fear as we hurtled past. There would have been time to write my will during the fall off the side of the mountain before hitting the bottom of the valley below.

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We then started the drive back to the airport. The Fiat drank only €40 of unleaded during the trip and (despite crap on-the-limit brakes) was the perfect steer for the drive. No, really. The super-tight hairpins, sharp elevations, narrow roads and cruddy surface would have ruined most things this side of an Elise. Saying ‘Cinquecento’ might mark you out as a bit of a tw@t in Melton Mowbray, but as the saying nearly goes ; ‘when in Milano’...

We dropped the 500’s keys back at the rental desk exactly 24 hours later, shrugging at the battle scars and scorched tyres and pointing at the ticked ‘super extra insurance cover’ box, before squeezing ourselves aboard the Ryanair flight home. ‘Dubious Dan’ looking at getting a new Fiat 500 when we got back, with the uprated brakes, although we all know it will never handle like a rental.

The Duisberg Kid, Sept 2010.

PS - Thanks to TsN regulars who came along for the ride, Tipex (his was the blowout pictured), Mook, Shark_90 (in a Smart !), Dazzer_VR6, Omi and co...

PPS - I hope you enjoyed my little write-up, there are more pics, info and other roadtrip/car stuff I've done with Dr Octane (Daz) online here > Suck Squeeze Bang Blow +++

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Was a great time, nice write up Duisberg!

I can confirm that Fiat 500's with a space saver wheel on the back don't handle very well, they are twitchy little feckers at the back at the best of times, but having a bicycle wheel on the back, then finding yourself sideways coming down the Gavia pass, on a stretch of road only as wide as the car, with a drop you can't see the bottom of due to being above the clouds, is a bit of a pant wetting/brown trouser moment.

And the tennis ball sized bulge on the other tyre meant I was sh*tting my pants in anticipation of a blowout whilst I was trying to catch the rest of you up again once on the main road at 3 times the maximum speed rating of the space saver spare.

Still, great little cars though, handlings a bit iffy, way too bouncy on the rear, but otherwise great cars, there is a write up about the 500 Essess (or something) in the letest issue of Track driver, and it's absolutely spot on, I know we were only in 1.2 Sports (except Mook in his 'Lounge' *snigger*) but the handling characteristics and deficiencies they mention, were exactly what I experienced.

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on board video please

Certainly Sir >

If you don't like my eclectic taste in music, there's always the 'mute' key. Gavia at the end is just awesome.

Can't embed it for some reason, the better quality footage used is courtesy of Ben at Shark chasing in a 55bhp Smart car, he was actually quicker than us which is saying something.

Got something similar planned for November, if any of the regulars fancy it, drop me a line pronto. ;)

Edited by theduisbergkid
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Having done many trips to the Nurbugring, Le Mans, Spa etc etc, I have to say this I enjoyed this 1 day Fiat bashing extravaganza more than anything I've ever done. And I'm not exaggerating.

Thanks to TDK for "not" organising it.

My videos (complete with dodgy overtakes) can be found here:

Stelvio part 1

Stelvio part 2

Gavia pass (actually breathtaking)

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  • 1 month later...

I read this thread ages ago but have only now watched the videos. All I can say is doing that in a Smart car is insane. They're the most understeering car in the world. Fair play!!:notworthy:

Create write up and vids. Simply brilliant stuff. +++

Loving That.

I would love to do the Stelvio. Maybe i will one day. Preferably in something suitably noisy like Scotty's old S4. +++

I'll never forget my trip up and over the Stelvio in that car. I'm so glad I video'ed some of it. :cool:

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