Monday 8th December 2014

Audi TT to the Isle of Mull

Scottish launch and a tarmac rally anniversary? Too good an opportunity to miss!

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Mull is not the most obvious place in Scotland for a driving adventure. This Hebridean island isn't home to any of the sort of sweeping A-roads that you'd normally associate with the Highlands, although you'll have travelled over a few of these on the long journey there. Rather Mull's roads are narrow, twisty and very three-dimensional, with the big crests inevitably followed by deep gouges in the tarmac where the undersides of cars have met the surface. There's a reason for that.

The long wait for another ferry...

Because for motorsport fans, Mull is most famous as the home of Britain's first closed road tarmac rally. This year was the 45th running of the Tour of Mull, which turns the island's more challenging roads into its stages, and boasts one of the most esoteric entry lists you'll see in any rally - from historics to full-on WRC cars. In recent years it's also tended to be won by a very handy local bloke in a Mk2 Escort, Calum Duffy, but we'll tell you more about him in a separate story.

But while it's well worth coming to Mull for the Tour in October, it's also a great place to visit afterwards - when the roads are open and there's nobody about, and you can make your own private pilgrimage to a motorsport venue that makes the Col De Turini look as fast and open as Monza. So when we were invited to the UK launch of the new Audi TT near Glasgow, we were straight into Google maps to plan a scenic detour. 118 miles and two ferry crossings? That's nothing by Highland standards...

The TT makes light work of the run up the A82. I've got a TFSI Quattro rather than the harder-edged 'S', and our test car also comes with an S-Tronic twin-clutch gearbox instead of the manual that would be better suited to this drive. But it's good at both rapid cruising and overtaking on the well-sighted straights. Although whatever you're in you must slow for the famous stretch through Glencoe, forgetting entirely about making progress and enjoying what has to be one of the most spectacular panoramas you can see through a windscreen, anywhere in the world.

What's the story in Tobermory?

The Corran Ferry cuts out a huge loop via Fort William, and leads to the far quieter A861, running down the shore of Loch Linnhe before cutting across the hills to the tiny village of Lochaline, and a 40-minute wait for the second ferry of the day and another wallet-lightening courtesy of Caledonian MacBrayne. It's fair to say that nobody comes to Mull by accident.

First impressions of Mull itself are, well, a bit Father Ted. The ferry terminal at Fishnish is basically a rainswept shed and three cars waiting to make the return trip. The A849 towards Tobermory - the only town of any size on the island - leads past some abandoned fishing boats and quickly becomes a single track with passing places. If this is the main road, what are the ones in the middle of the island going to look like?

There's only one way to find out; taking a left onto the unclassified road that leads across the centre of the island to Dervaig. This is the Glen Aros stage, 10 miles through moorland and forest over yumps and crumbling tarmac. It's started to rain hard at this point, and although it's only two thirty it's already starting to get properly dark. The road feels tight - it's barely wider than the TT - and on the rare well-sighted straights 60mph feels seriously quick. I later find out that, by Tour standards, it's pretty much as fast and open as the stages come, and the front-runners well over 120mph in places. The Audi finds more than enough grip, even in the sodden conditions, but it doesn't enjoy the rough surface, with the dampers struggling to keep up with the high-frequency undulations. Still, at least the TT and I have got the road to ourselves, not seeing another car the whole way to Dervaig.

Just follow the sump marks...

This story wasn't planned as an exhaustive exploration of all the Tour's stage mileage, but it's soon clear that the island's most interesting roads are all integrated into the rally's considerable mileage - with 154 stage miles this year - often several different times. This year's event finished with a 22-mile mega-stage that combined the previously used Loch Tuath and Calgary Bay stages, running all the way around the north west coast of the island, often next to vertiginous drops straight into the sea. The road is narrower than many driveways, and on the twistier sections 30mph in the TT feels positively daring. The idea of attacking this flat-out, in the dark, at the end of an intense, three-day event is, frankly, a bit humbling.

Before this sounds exclusively like a homage to roads with grass growing up the middle, there are plenty of other things to do on Mull. The scenery is universally stunning, there's a whisky distillery to visit and the cute wee town of Tobermory will be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever had to sit through an episode of children's TV show Balamory, where most of it was filmed.

Every bridge a potential jump

The TT acquitted itself pretty well, too. I finally found a marginally wider road (also run as the Mishnish Lochs stage) with a series of climbing hairpin bends that enabled the Audi to demonstrate an agility and adjustability far beyond either of its predecessors. It's still not a Cayman, but it's definitely further to the right on the coupe-sports car scale than it used to be.

The locals are a friendly bunch too, although several clearly thought my pilgrimage to Mull out-of-season was pure madness. They may have been right, but I'm bloody glad I did it.

 

 

[GTEYE]

Looks decent enough, but you just wish they could have been a little bit more imaginative.