Yahoo Autos Touring the British Isles in a Diesel, Manual Cargo Van
I pulled out of the pits and onto the front straight of the storied Goodwood Motor Circuit with one thought in my head: "This is the place that killed Bruce McLaren." It's a funny old course, an unassuming-looking ribbon built on the bones of a World War II airfield, with no Tilke-like regard for driver safety. It can compress and unload a car's suspension in unorthodox ways, but most of all, it rewards hot, nasty speed. Tom Kristensen loves the place, and Tom Kristensen is the best driver I've ever been in an automobile with. I, on the other hand, wasn't sure how I'd get on with it.
I'd liked lapping Le Mans well enough, although I was more taken with the spectacle of the place than with the course itself. I prefer to think that Laguna Seca and I are the best of pals, though on occasion, it likes to remind me that we aren't. I still dream of getting another shot at Daytona under the lights, but as sketchy and demanding as Daytona can be, the danger at Goodwood is somehow more palpable. A year prior, I'd seen Mark Gillies, Volkswagen PR man, former C/D staffer, and an accomplished vintage racer, involved in a wreck in an exceptionally rare and rather valuable ERA during the 2017 Goodwood Revival. The old circuit is not for the faint of heart or those lacking in stereotypically masculine fortitude. I'm somewhat faint of heart, and my penchant for Black Sabbath might be the most manly thing about me. But I had an unwitting ace up my sleeve: I'd been resistance training with an Opel Vivaro.
I'd allowed myself the luxury of a lengthy trip to the British Isles with no real budget-a once-in-a-lifetime sort of deal. If I wanted something, I bought it. If I wanted to go somewhere, I did. I stayed in a few nice Airbnbs; bought myself a guitar and amp, which for all intents and purposes wound up being a gift to my young cousin Jonathan; and decided to head over to Goodwood for the Festival of Speed before I'd been added to Subaru's press program, meaning I spent all that money on the Queen Mary 2 for naught. But I needed a way to get from Dublin to the place I was staying up in Carlingford, then back to Dublin to pick up the magnificent new Cotic mountain bike the boys at Expert Cycles in Rathfarnham were building me, and then onto the ferry from Dublin to Wales. My solution? A Citroën Berlingo panel van, a tidy little cargo runabout with space for my luggage and acquisitions; a vanlet I could stash in a London parking garage and that wouldn't be too much of a handful on narrow city streets and oxcart-width country lanes. When I arrived at the Enterprise location near Croke Park, I got what then seemed like the worst news of the trip: I'd been upgraded.
The Opel Vivaro was significantly larger than the cheerful, workaday Berlingo-about the size of a Mercedes-Benz Metris, it's a lame-duck rebadge of the Renault Trafic whose nameplate is switching to a van based on the wonderfully named Citroën Jumpy. The Irishman who presented me with my upgraded vehicle seemed taken aback that I was bummed about the size increase and then asked, "Do you want a van because you need a van? Or because it's cheap?" Frankly, the answer was both, but I couldn't have this Dubliner whom I didn't know and would never see again thinking that I was some sort of cheapskate with a new Cartier on his wrist. "I need a van."
So off I went, bumbling up the M1 motorway, bounding down country lanes, pretending I was caning the Opel Manta I'd coveted as a child. The rear-drive van's chassis dynamics were surprisingly solid, and the diesel/manual powertrain had a bit of zip to it, given that I was carrying maybe 150 pounds of cargo in the back. The stereo was pleasantly conversant with my iPhone, so a steady stream of Stiff Little Fingers and Thin Lizzy poured from the speakers while in Ireland, with the Damned, Sabbath, and the Who taking over in England.
Subaru had booked us a few hours of track time on the Goodwood circuit prior to our visit to the Festival of Speed. The cars were the same hoary squad of left-hand-drive, Indiana-plated STIs that Subaru of America has kept over here for three years or so. The last time I'd been in one of them, Hungarian Road & Track correspondent Máté Petrány and I had visited Heidiland in Switzerland en route to Zurich airport from Saint-Moritz. Do yourself a favor and catch the Heidispiel, which is essentially a life-sized glockenspiel featuring Johanna Spyri's beloved characters and a goat. Máté and I have nebulous but firm plans to go back.
After a couple of weeks in the van, the Subie felt tidy, the shifter was once again in the proper hand, and any weight transfer felt minimal. I'm far from C/D's hottest shoe, am never the fastest guy during track events, and, in my personal life, would rather spend track-day tire money on a road trip. The fastest car I own is basically a limousine, albeit a limousine of a type once wheeled around Silverstone by Juan Manuel Fangio. But that day, when I dared look at the speedo, I was hitting 140 mph before slowing for Woodcote corner and reeling in guys whom I'd generally consider a class up. For whatever reason, the Goodwood Motor Circuit agrees with me, but I'd say I owe the majority of my success to spending two weeks wrangling the van from the wrong seat.
Post-Goodwood, I had a slightly harrowing run through London en route to a fitting appointment at Crombie's Mayfair location. Curses were levied at the absolutely fiendish double-decker drivers, revealing anti-British sentiments I wasn't aware of on top of the ones I was well aware of. Grow up during the Troubles, and you never quite forget. England, however, isn't all bad. I did accidentally drive all around Sloane Square, making a mental note to tell my Morrissey-fan friend Shauna that I'd pulled a full "Hairdresser on Fire".
The Vivaro's advertised vertical dimension was a shade under the advertised acceptable height for the Savile Row-adjacent garage I was planning to park in. But when I arrived, I heard that great, gut-churning scraping sound from the van's roof. The chain-hung height-limit warning bar was doing its job, perhaps a bit too well. My stream of anti-British invective grew more inclusive, now embracing the Germans and the French. After much circling, I found a spot outside the Bentley/Bugatti dealership. DGJ, putting the stank on classy joints since 1975.
Fresh off the Cairnryan-Belfast ferry and back in Dublin, I picked up my friend Katie at the airport. We hadn't seen each other since 2010 and had gradually rebuilt a friendship after parting under less than ideal circumstances. There was a garage near our apartment in Temple Bar. According to the posted sign, the van fit. Nonetheless, I was once again treated to that infernal scraping sound. Google Maps is not nearly as effective a tool in Ireland as it is in the States, and my phone kept calling out turns just as I arrived at intersections, inspiring a whole new string of curses, levied this time at my own Irish and American countrymen.
Katie just laughed, over the moon at being abroad again after years of being stuck in America. "This is exactly what I wanted!" she exclaimed. It takes a peculiar sort of person to find perfection in my frazzled swearing at both a Franco-German van and Sergey Brin while bounding through a historic European capital, but Katie is nothing if not a wonderfully peculiar human being. I eventually gave up and left the van with my long-suffering friend Dave out in the suburbs and had him give us a ride back to the city. Like everything Vivaro, the end of my vanning adventure wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it somehow turned out to be everything I needed.
('You Might Also Like',)
