Tamora 3000 mile road trip

Tamora 3000 mile road trip

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Sevenman

Original Poster:

740 posts

191 months

Sunday 4th November 2012
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Having bought our Tamora in November 2011, we wanted to get a good long drive done to make sure the car got properly warmed up.

Work got in the way early in the year, but I had some time from mid-May so we took 3 weeks to drive down to the French Alps, South of France / Monaco, Italian Lakes, a bit of Switzerland and back home. As it is over 3 weeks it is a bit steadier-paced than the intense week-long driving holidays, with a few non-driving days (which I needed).

The car did very well, no mechanical issues and it used no oil or water. The car experienced everything from heavy snow and days of endless rain to baking sun and was solid throughout. Apart from grip on snow, but that is to be expected. It returned 27 mpg over the 3000 miles.

The roads were mixed. Some of the passes were great, some really good driving. Other bits were less good (narrow roads, traffic, low speed limits, no parking) and we would have been better off in a Fiat Panda or public transport than a TVR.

I can see where there is benefit to a properly organised driving holiday where someone has gone to th effort of making an optimised route where you can have some fun and avoiding the awkward, dull, or slow roads. On our trip sometimes we were lucky with roads, and sometimes we weren't.

The car got a good reaction from people, and after a few conversations I got better at describing TVRs in French.

This link takes you to a really long road trip report split over 3 pages (with links between pages).

A few pictures are below.

Heading out, nice and clean


Into the mountains


Just after we had turned back due to a snowstorm


On the Monaco start line


Sometimes the roof came off


Start of the Gottard Pass


Part-way up the Gottard Pass



GlennT

160 posts

176 months

Wednesday 7th November 2012
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Looks a great trip! Makes me think it's time to plan something similar for next year, whilst tucked up by the fire!

LaserTam

2,101 posts

218 months

Wednesday 7th November 2012
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looks like a great trip. If only I could persuade Mrs LT that this is a good idea...

macdeb

8,492 posts

254 months

Wednesday 7th November 2012
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Cool, did couple of similar trips in two different TVR's. No reason why a TVR should have any problems with it. Johnny Foreigners reaction to a TVR is cool. I've had, 'my, you have such a beautiful car' and a bunch of French lads stand around it pointing and saying, ' oh, t-v-yerr'. They seem to appreciate them.

Sevenman

Original Poster:

740 posts

191 months

Thursday 8th November 2012
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Thanks for the comments. It was a good trip and well worth the effort to give the TVR a decent outing.

Hopefully the write-up will be of some use to people passing through those parts to find out which bits I thought were good, and which areas were less-suited to a sports car. There were a few times when I wanted to be in a Fiat Panda not a Tamora... But plenty of times when it was the other way round wink

Monsterlime

1,205 posts

165 months

Saturday 10th November 2012
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What a fantastic trip, and something I have been wanting to do for a while now. The write-up was great, thanks for sharing!

Davel

8,982 posts

257 months

Monday 12th November 2012
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Thanks for posting that!

Getting itchy feet now!

driving