Saturday Morning Hoon
Discussion
My bestie, Reeso, is more than a little bit disheartened that he didn't make the 'spotted' thread this morning, so I'm going to cheer him up some with a report on our Hoon round NE Essex.
He e-mails me on Friday morning and says 'Hey, going for a drive Saturday morning, fancy being the passenger or bringing your Pork?'
I managed to think about this for a full 0.00001 seconds before diving into Google Maps to plan a Murcielago-friendly route.
Responded in the positive to the 'Passenger / rozzer spotter' role, and spent the rest of the day grinning like the proverbial.
Come the morning and I'm like a kid at Christmas, standing at the window waiting for santa. Only this time, santa is a bit shorter, considerably thinner (he'll like that) and driving a 640bhp bomb on wheels.
Of course, I heard before I saw. 'Benefitting' from a Tubi exhaust, even on a trailing thottle it's enough to startle small children and pets at 500 yards. Good Start.
So, we drool for a while, then head off.
Route is: Up to and down the A120 towards Stansted, keep going onto the A507, then turn down the A1 towards London and back across the M25, and up the A12. Nice circle of about 110 miles-ish.
The drive out to the A120 was a good few minutes to familiarise myself with my buds new baby;
Big, White, Noise, Fast. Okay, good.
We had to talk a bit louder due to the Tubi and, given the internal width of the car, and to remember to turn towards each other too, otherwise the sound just gets lost! You're a surprising distance apart in one of these I realised. The rides not too bad either, hard, yes, but not as much as I'd imagined.
Arrives at the A120 junction, and then get a lesson in e-gear management as you can't simply 'coast' in gear as you can in a manual. It's a case of deftly flicking between 1st and neutral, or stopping to leave a gap to form to save frying the clutch within a few yards.
Traffic clears, deep breath, and we turn left down the bypass.
Now some, or most of you have been in fast cars or even one of these I'm sure, and I'll hope you'll agree when I say that NOTHING prepares you for what happens when the loud pedal is used in anger for the first time.
Christ on a bike, talk about sensory overload. We're not in sport mode so the upshifts aren't too brutal, but the sound of the engine as the next gear is paddle-flicked into service is just immense. Before I've had time to adjust, we're well on the wrong side of three figures and slowing for some traffic ahead.
I'm not sure what to say for a few seconds. Already, we've got a car alongside us giving large grins and camera flashes aplenty. This must be what celebrity (whatever that is) feels like.
This continues all the way to our first pit stop just outside Buntingford, where, I swear to God, some kids come up and ask 'What'll it do?' Bless.
Next leg is up to Baldock where we pick up the A1, and we've still got fans round us like flies.
The idea is we head back to and round the M25 so we can do some tunnel bashing. Little do we know that the best is actually just ahead outside Hatfield.
A 3/4 mile tunnel. You should have seen the look on our faces.
Right, windows down, 50mph, 2nd gear and wait.
If any of you have ever heard or seen Vulcan Bomber at an airshow, you'll have a fair idea of the sound that errupted when he nailed the throttle until it hit 7500rpm, then kept clicking for gears till we hit sixth. Cue more cars round us with thumbs up and grinning like loons. We had a lot of tunnel still left, so we did it all again. Awesome.
We were pretty sure we wouldn't top that once we hit the M25 and we were right, the smaller tunnels between the A1 and A12 weren't as much fun. Didn't stop us trying though!
Nice and sedate up the A12 back to base. pondering on this amazing machine.
All this flagrant CO2 production one such a lovely sunny day got me hankering for a drive too, so when we got back to my place I decided to get my 997 out and follow him back to his homestead.
What follows are some pics of that drive and the car in general. suffice to say that even my BOSE wasn't about to defeat the Tubi, so I just went with stereo off, windows open, sporting the same nutty grin I'd had all morning.
I'm so chuffed for my mate as he's wanted one of these for as long as I've known him and he's well made up. He's hoping to make it out to some of the car meets I go to starting in April, so watch, or rather, listen out for him. E1VLL will get you in the end...
He e-mails me on Friday morning and says 'Hey, going for a drive Saturday morning, fancy being the passenger or bringing your Pork?'
I managed to think about this for a full 0.00001 seconds before diving into Google Maps to plan a Murcielago-friendly route.
Responded in the positive to the 'Passenger / rozzer spotter' role, and spent the rest of the day grinning like the proverbial.
Come the morning and I'm like a kid at Christmas, standing at the window waiting for santa. Only this time, santa is a bit shorter, considerably thinner (he'll like that) and driving a 640bhp bomb on wheels.
Of course, I heard before I saw. 'Benefitting' from a Tubi exhaust, even on a trailing thottle it's enough to startle small children and pets at 500 yards. Good Start.
So, we drool for a while, then head off.
Route is: Up to and down the A120 towards Stansted, keep going onto the A507, then turn down the A1 towards London and back across the M25, and up the A12. Nice circle of about 110 miles-ish.
The drive out to the A120 was a good few minutes to familiarise myself with my buds new baby;
Big, White, Noise, Fast. Okay, good.
We had to talk a bit louder due to the Tubi and, given the internal width of the car, and to remember to turn towards each other too, otherwise the sound just gets lost! You're a surprising distance apart in one of these I realised. The rides not too bad either, hard, yes, but not as much as I'd imagined.
Arrives at the A120 junction, and then get a lesson in e-gear management as you can't simply 'coast' in gear as you can in a manual. It's a case of deftly flicking between 1st and neutral, or stopping to leave a gap to form to save frying the clutch within a few yards.
Traffic clears, deep breath, and we turn left down the bypass.
Now some, or most of you have been in fast cars or even one of these I'm sure, and I'll hope you'll agree when I say that NOTHING prepares you for what happens when the loud pedal is used in anger for the first time.
Christ on a bike, talk about sensory overload. We're not in sport mode so the upshifts aren't too brutal, but the sound of the engine as the next gear is paddle-flicked into service is just immense. Before I've had time to adjust, we're well on the wrong side of three figures and slowing for some traffic ahead.
I'm not sure what to say for a few seconds. Already, we've got a car alongside us giving large grins and camera flashes aplenty. This must be what celebrity (whatever that is) feels like.
This continues all the way to our first pit stop just outside Buntingford, where, I swear to God, some kids come up and ask 'What'll it do?' Bless.
Next leg is up to Baldock where we pick up the A1, and we've still got fans round us like flies.
The idea is we head back to and round the M25 so we can do some tunnel bashing. Little do we know that the best is actually just ahead outside Hatfield.
A 3/4 mile tunnel. You should have seen the look on our faces.
Right, windows down, 50mph, 2nd gear and wait.
If any of you have ever heard or seen Vulcan Bomber at an airshow, you'll have a fair idea of the sound that errupted when he nailed the throttle until it hit 7500rpm, then kept clicking for gears till we hit sixth. Cue more cars round us with thumbs up and grinning like loons. We had a lot of tunnel still left, so we did it all again. Awesome.
We were pretty sure we wouldn't top that once we hit the M25 and we were right, the smaller tunnels between the A1 and A12 weren't as much fun. Didn't stop us trying though!
Nice and sedate up the A12 back to base. pondering on this amazing machine.
All this flagrant CO2 production one such a lovely sunny day got me hankering for a drive too, so when we got back to my place I decided to get my 997 out and follow him back to his homestead.
What follows are some pics of that drive and the car in general. suffice to say that even my BOSE wasn't about to defeat the Tubi, so I just went with stereo off, windows open, sporting the same nutty grin I'd had all morning.
I'm so chuffed for my mate as he's wanted one of these for as long as I've known him and he's well made up. He's hoping to make it out to some of the car meets I go to starting in April, so watch, or rather, listen out for him. E1VLL will get you in the end...
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