RE: Life after Pub2Pub: The Eagle Rally

RE: Life after Pub2Pub: The Eagle Rally

Saturday 27th October 2018

Life after Pub2Pub: The Eagle Rally

So, you've driven your TVR across the globe - what's next? We catch up with the Pub2Pub's Ben Coombs to find out...



They say that when a dream comes true, it will inevitably lead to other dreams.  Well, earlier this year, I had a pretty big dream come true, as I crossed the finish line in the Pub2Pub Expedition's TVR, having just completed a 27,000 mile odyssey across 25 countries, from the northernmost bar on the planet, to the southernmost - an adventure you can read more about here.

So, after such an against-the-odds success, what could the next dream be?  Well, the answer to that question had formed gradually in my mind during those long days on the road, rolling south.  As I progressed, I'd felt a groundswell of enthusiasm for what our doughty Chimaera was achieving, by the end of the trip, there was a definite feeling that people were inspired by this irreverent, pub-based style of adventure.  And this got me thinking, given what an incredible experience Pub2Pub had been, why should I have all the fun? Shouldn't everyone have the opportunity to experience their own Pub-based adventures? Of course they should, and it's that idea which led me to dream up The Eagle Rally.


Because let's face it, who wouldn't want to take a road trip to 'The Eagle's Nest' - a beer garden on the summit of a 6,000ft high mountain in deepest Bavaria, which was once the haunt of a certain Mr A. Hitler.

It turns out that a fair few people agreed with us, and so after putting the shout out, it was a 14-strong convoy of sports cars which set off for the Eagle's Nest a few weeks ago.  And not just any sports cars - half the convoy was made up of TVRs, while the remainder was an extroverted mixture of Porsches, Jaguars, BMWs, and a turbocharged MX-5 which held its own fantastically against the big boys.

Right from the start, The Eagle Rally benefitted from the high profile which Pub2Pub had built up in the wilds of Latin America.  One of the trip's legacies is that the way it's connected with people meant we were able to open doors which would've remained firmly closed to us before the trip.  For instance, we decided that Neil Garner Performance Engineering's open day would be an ideal launch venue - a few emails and it was all arranged. Or, how about setting up an en-route afternoon car meet at Gatton Manor house, with Les Edgar and the new TVR Griffith in attendance?  A quick call to the good folk at TVR was all it took to make it happen.


And we're glad it did happen, as it was a very proud moment for us to see how far our Pub2Pub dream had come.  In just over a year, we'd gone from little more than custodians of an idea and a pretty average Chimaera, to hosting a car meet in a manor house attended by about 60 incredible vehicles, including TVR's hopefully-glorious future - thanks Les!

From Gatton Manor, our convoy headed across the channel, where Sunday lunchtime saw us near Brussels, dining with the Belgian branch of the TVR Car Club - another great moment which we couldn't easily have made happen without the Pub2Pub back-story.

And Brussels marked a stepchange in our European experience, as it heralded the point where the first ripples in the landscape beckoned in the more interesting driving roads of the Ardennes. Behind us, the dull autoroutes of the Low Countries; ahead, a gradual escalation of driving interest as the Alps drew closer.


Our route headed south east from Brussels, the roads gradually becoming more technical as we passed the towns of Huy and Trois-points, before we dropped into Luxembourg, following the river down the border with Germany, where the sunset heralded an overnight stop at the Unesco town of Trier.

Day three saw us take in the largest collection of Formula 1 cars in Europe (at the Auto & Technik museum in Sinsheim - definitely worth a visit if you're passing), and also bore witness to the only breakdown of the trip - one of the Chimaera's alternators decided to go on strike after chasing our resident brace of 911 Turbos down the Autobahn at about 150mph. Fortunately, the TVR community rallied around, and helped us to find a replacement.  The Porsches meanwhile, proved themselves to be completely happy bahnstorming along at speeds of up to 190mph.

With half the convoy sporting a TVR badge on their fibreglass noses, our visit to the Porsche factory was always going to be an interesting experience, but in the event, it turned out to be interesting for all the wrong reasons for my globetrotting TVR.  Pulling into the museum's underground car park, the enthusiastic generation of patriotic exhaust noise in this bastion of German automotive culture resulted in a bang from under the bonnet, followed by a loud clattering, and pieces of rubber flying out of the bonnet vents.  Yep, Kermit's auxiliary belt had self-destructed. Fortunately, it was a five-minute job to swap it for the spare I'd brought along, with the irony of the situation certainly not lost.


We rolled on south, the convoy flowing across the rolling countryside like a dream, snaking left and right, pulling out to overtake slower cars, then tucking in again as one; a dreamlike sensation with sports cars stretching ahead and behind as far as the eye could see.  And as we rolled on, the landscape's ripples became more pronounced, until the horizon became a wall of snow-clad mountains - the seemingly impenetrable barrier of the Alps.

The Alps marked the beginning of our drive's main event, for it was there, on the shores of Lake Constance that we picked up the legendary 'Deutsche Alpenstrasse'- a 280 mile stretch of perfect tarmac which snakes its way across southern Germany, almost directly to the Eagle's Nest.


We spent two days barrelling along this grand alpine route, sometimes roaring across farmland dotted with chocolate-box cottages, other times attacking the stacked hairpins which took us from valley to high pass.  Our progress was helped by the light traffic, and the only real delay we suffered in our two days on the Alpenstrasse was when the Bavarian Police decided to set up a road block and pull the whole convoy over, before letting us continue about ten minutes later - one of the trip's more surreal moments.

After six days on the road, our destination hoved into view - a 6,000ft high mountain, with the Eagle's Nest perched improbably on its very summit.  A bus took us up the steep, singletrack road to a turning point beneath the structure, where a tunnel led 124m into the mountain. Once there, we boarded a 1930s brass elevator which lifted us to the Eagle's Nest, where beers in the sunshine were chinked to another Pub2Pub Adventure successfully completed, and another dream achieved.

So what's the next dream?  To find out, keep an eye on Pub2Pub's website.

Pub2Pub is supported by Classicline Insurance, Dartmoor Brewery, TVR-Parts and the TVR Car Club.

Photo credits: Rik Lanyi, Nick Aldworth and Ben Coombs







Ben Coombs

Author
Discussion

Turbobanana

Original Poster:

6,159 posts

200 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Sounds like a lot of fun, and a great write up as ever, but no pics of the final destination? As I read it I was expecting to see what it looked like (although I guess you had less incentive to take pictures with no cars there).

spikyone

1,413 posts

99 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Turbobanana said:
Sounds like a lot of fun, and a great write up as ever, but no pics of the final destination? As I read it I was expecting to see what it looked like (although I guess you had less incentive to take pictures with no cars there).
I was too busy drooling over the Tuscan to notice. TVR really nailed it with that one, just a completely timeless elegance. Lovely. Really throws the styling of the new one into perspective though...

Sounds like another fantastic trip, if slightly less epic than the last one. Great to see the legacy of Pub2Pub going strong and the wider world buying into the idea.

Pub2Pub_Ben

589 posts

169 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Cheers guys,

Sorry about the lack of photos from the Eagle's Nest - consider the omission corrected:









For more photos from the trip, take a look here


matt21

4,285 posts

203 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Looks a fantastic trip!

Being a little creepy / geeky I checked the MoT history on your TVR to see how many miles it has done (impressed with its reliability!). Noticed just 10-11k from before to after the Pub2Pub trip. Why’s that?

Pub2Pub_Ben

589 posts

169 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
matt21 said:
Looks a fantastic trip!

Being a little creepy / geeky I checked the MoT history on your TVR to see how many miles it has done (impressed with its reliability!). Noticed just 10-11k from before to after the Pub2Pub trip. Why’s that?
Call it TVR foibles - the odometer stuck for about 19,000 miles during the trip, failing to record Europe, half the US leg, Central America and part of South America... it's a pretty common issue with these cars.

Ironically, it's been working perfectly since the car finished the big drive, and is sitting at around 64,000 miles now - which equates to a 'real' total of about 83,000.

Turbobanana

Original Poster:

6,159 posts

200 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Pub2Pub_Ben said:
Cheers guys,

Sorry about the lack of photos from the Eagle's Nest - consider the omission corrected:









For more photos from the trip, take a look here
Fantastic, thanks Ben.

ruzman

45 posts

100 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Excellent trip Ben. Cheers for sorting it.

matt21

4,285 posts

203 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Pub2Pub_Ben said:
matt21 said:
Looks a fantastic trip!

Being a little creepy / geeky I checked the MoT history on your TVR to see how many miles it has done (impressed with its reliability!). Noticed just 10-11k from before to after the Pub2Pub trip. Why’s that?
Call it TVR foibles - the odometer stuck for about 19,000 miles during the trip, failing to record Europe, half the US leg, Central America and part of South America... it's a pretty common issue with these cars.

Ironically, it's been working perfectly since the car finished the big drive, and is sitting at around 64,000 miles now - which equates to a 'real' total of about 83,000.
Haha as suspected. Sorry for the question, was curious.

Anyway great trip and looking out for the next one. Eagles Nest is definitely on the bucket list

beach kid

43 posts

165 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Hi Ben
Congrats on another successful trip!
Loving that your dreams keep coming to fruition, super inspiring to us all!
Long may they come true!
Happy travels from us all @ Hotel Brio, Nicaragua
Cheers
Adam

Jazz Machine

169 posts

178 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
I thought I'd add a quick comment too, adding a couple of photo's to elaborate a little on the adventures Ben touched upon in the article as well as the comments above comparing the Tuscan with the new Griffith.

I had an awesome time on the Eagle Rally, and it's made me want to look forward to more adventures in the future!

Solitude Circuit - Now a public road near Stuttgart:



The Alpenstrasse - I cant say how beautiful this spot was, or how turqoise the water was, which truly doesn't come out in the photo:



Comparing new and old. You know what for all the stick the new TVR gets about it's looks I'm going to say this - 1. In the flesh it's actually very awesome - Most photo's do not do this car any justice (including my photo's!). 2. It's a new modern car not a TVR recreation, so what did you expect!?







Edited by Jazz Machine on Saturday 27th October 15:08

TrotCanterGallopCharge

419 posts

89 months

Saturday 27th October 2018
quotequote all
Pub2Pub_Ben said:
Cheers guys,

Sorry about the lack of photos from the Eagle's Nest - consider the omission corrected:









For more photos from the trip, take a look here
You mention a brass elevator to the Eagles Nest, I read once of a brass elevator on that site, that had a poison gas
system fitted, to be able to kill anyone/any team who were using the lift, who were trying to kill Hitler/High level officials. Dont think it was ever used though.

Great work by the way by all involved, thanks for the photos & all your efforts.

only1ian

684 posts

193 months

Sunday 28th October 2018
quotequote all
Great Event! Ben I’ve got an embryonic idea to organise something along the same lines with the tag “escape from colditz” if you interested drop me a line!

Pub2Pub_Ben

589 posts

169 months

Sunday 28th October 2018
quotequote all
TrotCanterGallopCharge said:
You mention a brass elevator to the Eagles Nest, I read once of a brass elevator on that site, that had a poison gas
system fitted, to be able to kill anyone/any team who were using the lift, who were trying to kill Hitler/High level officials. Dont think it was ever used though.

Great work by the way by all involved, thanks for the photos & all your efforts.
Hi, I'd never heard of the poison gas system, but it would make sense, as the only way from the tunnel to the eagle's nest is in the brass elevator - which apparently used to be powered by a U-Boat engine. As the elevator ascends over 100m to take you to the Eagle's Nest, there'd be plenty of time for the gas to do its work...

only1ian said:
Great Event! Ben I’ve got an embryonic idea to organise something along the same lines with the tag “escape from colditz” if you interested drop me a line!
Hi Ian, that sounds like a great idea for a run - especially with Colditz being a hotel these days.
It would certainly interest me, if it weren't for the fact that having two Nazi-centric events in the Pub2Pub Adventures calendar may take the Pub2Pub brand's image in a direction I hadn't planned on! Sounds like a promising idea though - let me know how you get on... smile