You know you're on a big trip when you have to smash out over 3,500 miles just to get to your start point, but that's exactly what the Pub2Pub Expedition were faced with earlier this month. First there was the small matter of a seven day, 2,800-mile drive to reach northern Norway, after which a mixture of plane and boat travel took the team to the planet's northernmost bar, located only 700 miles from the North Pole, in an abandoned Soviet-era mining settlement on the Svalbard Archipelago.
There are worse views in the world!
From Svalbard, all roads lead south. A long way south in Pub2Pub's case, given journey's end is the planet's southernmost licensed premises, tucked away in deepest Patagonia. So far, the expedition has made it back through Europe to the UK, from where the Chimaera is currently being shipped over to New York to continue the journey down through the Americas. So how is the mighty piece of Blackpool engineering fairing so far?
Well, with over 6,000 miles already under its belt in the first month, it's fair to say it's doing a pretty good job of dispelling the reputation these classic TVRs have for reliability. Breakdowns? None. Well, none for the TVR anyway, though the expedition has been through three different support vehicles so far...
And the highlights? Well the trip hasn't been short of those. From looking out for polar bears in the high Arctic to dropping into the Koenigsegg factory, Pub2Pub's European leg hasn't been short of stand-out moments, which you can read more about on the expedition's blog.
The adventure is all set to resume when Pub2Pub hits the road across the USA in mid August, and we're looking forward to seeing how the TVR fares as it crosses the new world...