The ultimate road trips, from a Ferrari across China to a GT3 on the Targa Florio
A nostalgic Richard Meaden recalls some of his most memorable drives
Nothing beats a proper four-wheeled adventure. If you’re a time-served reader of evo you’ll know I’ve had more than my fair share, but hopefully you’ve enjoyed coming along for the ride.
We all have our go-to favourite routes. Within UK shores mine would be the Scottish Highlands (though sadly the North Coast 500 has now fallen victim to the campervandemic), while in Europe I’d head to the Route Napoléon or the web of the Susten, Grimsel and Furka mountain passes in Switzerland.
I’m also fond of the run from the UK to the Nürburgring – a journey I’ve made countless times. Most of it is dull motorway, but the limit-free autobahn as soon as you enter Germany still tickles me to this day. When I was racing at the Nordschleife, those missions became increasingly anxious affairs, especially if the weekend weather forecast was bad, but latterly I’ve come to associate the trip with meeting mates, shooting the breeze, steak-on-a-stone and doing as many (or as few) laps as I like as fast (or slow) as I like.
Of evo road trips, driving a then-new Gen 1 996 GT3 around the Targa Florio route remains as close to the perfect job as I’ll ever experience. Travelling to Urumchi in remote north-western China to drive a 612 Scaglietti on some of the sketchiest roads imaginable as part of Ferrari’s pioneering ‘15,000 Red Miles’ lap of China is surely the most surreal.
However, driving through the Australian outback remains one of the most special – not to mention the longest – journeys of my life. It began with a gruelling sequence of flights from London to Singapore, then on to Sydney and finally Alice Springs in the dead-centre of Australia. Once there we – that’s to say myself and photographer Andy Morgan – collected a bright red 6.0 Monaro VXR from the local Holden dealer. Ahead of us stretched a near-1000-mile drive north to Darwin on the fabled Stuart Highway.
At the time – back in 2006 – ‘The Track’ had no speed limit in the Northern Territory, at least once outside the remote towns that punctuate the legendary route. And so, with strict orders not to drive between dusk and dawn due to the likelihood of hitting a camel or kangaroo, we brimmed the Monaro’s tank, trundled out of Alice Springs and then nailed it. For days.
All roads have a rhythm, but few if any settle into a groove like the Stuart Highway. Such is the scale of the place, all sense of speed soon melts away. With little in the way of gradient and direction change, the gunbarrel straights stretch to infinity, often plunging into what looks like water, but is in fact heat shimmer. On one memorable day somewhere north of Uluru we held 160mph for 11 minutes without so much as a lift. That evening, slaking our road warrior thirsts with ice-cold pints of VB, Andy and I calculated that straight to be 30 miles long.
We spent three epic days spearing across the Martian red outback and into the lush, humid tropics. When not pausing for fuel, food or photography we were travelling faster than any other land-bound vehicle in all of Australia. The fact the Northern Territory government imposed an 80mph speed limit on the Stuart Highway the year after our visit is entirely coincidental.
Yet memorable moments don’t depend upon striking out to far-flung locations in exotic metal. When I passed my driving test every drive was a great one. Partly due to the sheer novelty of being able to go wherever I pleased, but mostly because getting my licence and buying my first car was the start of the most rewarding journey of all: the eternal quest to be a better driver.
Like most of us, during my formative years I conflated driving fast with driving well. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy those carefree and occasionally sweaty-palmed days, but I’d also be dishonest if I didn’t also confess that it has come as a great relief not to feel that youthful pressure to prove myself to myself. More than three decades on I have become a much better driver, yet, ironically, I rarely drive as quickly as I used to. There’s still something deeply enjoyable about exploring the capabilities of a high-performance car on a great road, but gaining the wisdom to pick those moments rather than forcing them has unlocked a level of pleasure the less mellow 20-something Meaden would struggle to believe.
It’s very easy to feel jaded and cynical about most things these days. Cars and driving are no exception. But so long as I still smile inside when I snick the perfect downshift or slice the sweetest and most satisfying line through a sequence of corners there’s still cause to be optimistic. After all, where else but behind the wheel of a car can we simultaneously lose and find ourselves?
