GUILD OF MOTORING WRITERS

CLASSIC RALLY TO BRITTANY

7^th to 11^th June 2007

John Sutton reports 

Above: The author's 1924 30-98 Vauxhall

Even motoring journalists are allowed some time off! 

This year’s event was very well organized by Steve Brown and assisted by Mike Petty and Beth Llewellin. 

In all there were 50 Classic Cars entered and over 100 people to cater for.

 We entered the 1924 Vauxhall 30-98 which was the oldest car on the rally.  Some of the other entrants were quite surprised by the car’s performance.  We referred them to the Road Test in Country Life magazine of February 21^st 1925 which starts “Along the world’s fastest roads on the world’s fastest car”.

We took the overnight route from Portsmouth to St. Malo on Thursday and were treated to an excellent dinner on the boat courtesy of Brittany Ferries.  On arrival in France we motored along the almost deserted roads to meet for lunch at Rostrenen, sponsored by Daihatsu.  Arthur Fairley was our host and he almost missed out because his 1965 Daihatsu Compagno Berlina was held up requiring roadside repairs.  When he did arrive the meal was well underway and he got a standing ovation.

Above: Paul Skiller's 1955 Bentley Continental	Above: Ray Potter's 1937 SS 100 Jaguar

 

 

Following lunch we all set off on one of Steve Brown’s navigation runs and we got lost until the intrepid navigator found that she was reading from the wrong page of the route card!  We eventually arrived at the Hotel Castel Beau Site at Ploumanac’h where we were to spend the next two nights.  The hotel is almost on the beach of this delightful town and the sheltered bay with it’s surrounding rocks is quite spectacular.  After a buffet dinner, sponsored by Nissan, we retired for an earlyish night.

On Saturday morning we set off on a coastal route to Loquirec, another charming little harboured town.  We were entertained by the mayor, Monsieur Joel Le Roch, who had arranged reserved parking for us beside the port.  We had time to sample the local Huitres before setting off on foot for a treasure hunt in the town.  We found this far too difficult and only managed to find about half a dozen of the answers but Craig Cheetham and Tamsyn managed to get them all in spite of her being 7 months pregnant.  The mayor was fascinated by the Classic cars and his favorite was John Ball’s bright red Jaguar V12 E Type which as he said “it’s a real bird puller, ne’st pas?”. 

There followed another set route to a local cider farm where we were invited to taste the Breton Cidre.  We bought a large jar of the local honey.

We then followed the route back to Ploumanac’h for  a Gala Dinner sponsored by BMW.  “And so to bed” as Samuel Pepys would have said.

Sunday was going to be a longer, 120 mile, drive so we set off in good time.  There was a short stop for coffee before followed the route to Dinan.  This is a fascinating town with ramparts and a castle and is situated on the river Rance at the bottom of a gorge.  We had some difficulty negotiating the cobbled streets in the old town as our original route had been blocked by the castle wall falling into the road.  We were just glad this did not happen to fall on us!  We treated ourselves to a lunch at he river side at the Hotel Jerzual.  On returning to the car we were greeted by an ex-Vauxhall employee.

Above: Horsa Glider	Above: Half track military vehicle	Above: Chris Mann 1992 Bentley Continental R

The final run to Caen, where were due to embark for England, was via the Pegasus Bridge Museum.  This was the scene of a furious battle in WW2 when the British arrived from the air in Hengist and Horsa gliders having been towed across the Channel.  The Germans were taken by surprise but put up a determined defence.  The bridge was captured and destroyed cutting a strategic link.

The final dinner at La Ferme Hubert in Colleville-Montgomery was sponsored by Volkswagen (we didn’t mention the war).  This is a family run business and they went to considerable lengths to make us welcome particularly as they do not normally open on Sundays.

This was a most enjoyable few days away from the computer and we were blessed with the most glorious weather.  The Vauxhall 30-98 is a superb car for this type of open road motoring although over the 500 miles we must have scrubbed off about £500 worth of rubber from the beaded edge tyres. 

There is no doubt that we would not have found these charming French towns on our own and so they are definitely on our list of places to re-visit and explore in the future.

Well done the Guild, the organizers and the sponsors.