Renown road trip

[Rocket88]

After protracted negotiations with Andy at Birchfield Classics, who is a top bloke, a price was agreed for Audi 80 sport against the Renown. Left Jersey at 9.15 pm on Tuesday night

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Moody shot of Jersey skyline

 

Got off the boat at 1.15 am, and set off for Woburn. There's something deeply satisfying about hooning down deserted roads, and the multi coloured Aryan swop shop enjoyed itself thoroughly

 

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Another moody shot of Audi at Winchester services

 

Made good progress, got close to Wobuen at about 3.50 am, and found a Little Chef car park for a kip, which is where the fun started. The Audi has a remote central locking / alarm system, which I never fathomed how to switch off. What I didn't realise was that it also fitted with interior movement sensors, which, unless you had got the ignition switched on when you were in the car, would go off if you so much as twitched.

I was loath the leave the ignition on [tales of burnt out coils and other unpleasantness] so I ended up trying to kip propped up against a tree round the back of said Little Chef. This worked for about 18 seconds, until the bloody dawn chorus started. Birds are a noisy bunch of bastards, especially at that time of Christ o'clock, so I risked OMG coil disaster, and got back in the Audi ,switched on the ignition, and dozed fitfully until about 7 am .

Met Andy at about 7.45 am, and we had a poke at each other's cars, followed by a quick breakfast in Woburn. Renown was "as described", and he was happy with the Audi, so a large amount of wedge was sucked out of my bank card, and I set off for home. Got precisely 7 miles, and then realised I'd left the engine side panels, and a box full of other stuff behind. Bollocks. Traffic in Dunstable was stacked, so I decided to press on for Poole, and the boat home.

Got on the M25, and immediately ran into the statutory 4 line jam, which tested the Renown's cooling abalities pretty thoroughly [note to self, fit electric fan asap]

Got off M25 onto M4, and the traffic mysteriously vanished, until the M27 /A31. Anyway, made the boat with time to spare.

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Queuing to get on the boat

 

You may have noticed little mention of breakdowns, explosions, and things dropping off. That's because they didn't, the old boat skips along at 80 quite happily, much to amazement of the great unwashed, finger pointing public, and although the front end is a bit wandery, [front anti roll bar might be on the menu] she drives really well.

Got home at about 8.30, happy as Larry. Just noticed 2 of 3 pics aren't appearing.......bollocks

[trigger]

This is excellent, Although i think I'd personally have the Audi you can't beat a good road trip in something different, now just to sort out the photos to perv over!

[eddyramrod]

Can't see any of those (as so often ) but good story! What's happening about the stuff you left behind? Is Gary sending it on?

[michiel]

Good to hear it went well, I'll come back for the pics...