Ignacio Saenz de Camara
On June 27, 2009, Luis Barato left Tarifa with his fifty-year-old English convertible, a Hillman Minx. He went to the North Cape and returned home after traveling 17.000 kilometers. Four years later, we see that the car and the owner continue to stay in shape.
Surely you have dreamed of taking a trip like this. Prepare your classic and your luggage, draw a route and enjoy driving. However, it is always easy to find an excuse to delay such an enriching adventure. What if the family, what if you do not know Nordic or Eastern languages, what if that will cost a lot of gasoline ...
At 58 years old, Luis wanted to experience in his own flesh a journey like the one undertaken by the British journalist Richard Pape, who in 1955 left Norway with an Austin A90 Westminster bound for South Africa and who recounted his feat in the novel Cape "Cold to Cape Hot".
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Preparations and departure
From desire to reality. Luis drew up a budget and began to add possible expenses. In addition to the bridge tolls and gasoline, you had to pay for ferry crossings, campsites, maintenance and others, the latter being difficult to foresee. They left € 10.240, an amount higher than what I expected and respectable for a 35-day journey.
To compensate for such a high expense, it launched a search for sponsors, both from public and private entities. In the end, he obtained contributions from the international transport company Crossways Services, from the Madrid restaurant "El Bierzo", which is very close to his job, and from his friend Nicolás, who gave him 100 euros.
He also found two fellow travelers. His childhood friend Félix Matesanz, who made the journey with him aboard the Hillman, but who returned to Spain from Geneva. And Valentín Salvador, who undertook this same odyssey on the back of his Vespino. Logically, Valentine was at a different pace, but between the three of them they created a beneficial symbiosis. And, as we will see later, there was also a fourth in contention.
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On June 27 they left from Tarifa, the tip of the tail of the "Piel de Toro", and completed the stage in Jaén (414,5 km). The next day they reached Robregordo (Madrid) and on the third day they slept in Guéthary (France), always by road and avoiding the motorways. On July 1, the fifth day of travel, they arrived in Paris.
In order not to end up busted, they took the rule of resting on the 6th, 12th, 24th and 31st, plus the 14th and 15th of July that they would spend in North Cape. Therefore, they dedicated Thursday the 2nd to a walk in Paris. The first 3.700 km through Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark were entertaining, because there was variety, good weather and suitable roads.
By July 5 they were in Christianfeld on the Danish coast, ready to take the ship to Haegeland the next morning for Norway.
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How long is Norway!
It is difficult for us to imagine it, because our peninsula has a little more than 1.300 km from end to end and that already seems like a lot. And it is that from Haegeland to the North Cape they had 2874,4 km left, with the particularity that the roads are slower and on several occasions it is necessary to cross the fjords by boat, with the consequent waiting times.
Fortunately, the further north they were, the better the weather. After the Arctic Glacial Circle, they were 370 kilometers away, although upon reaching the coast they had to enter a toll tunnel, almost 7 km long and connecting under the Barents Sea - at a depth of 212 meters - with the Mageroya Island, which is where the North Cape is.
There were still 50 km of straights, through the arid landscape of the tundra.
We were at the North Cape!
With the excitement of arrival, at 14:XNUMX p.m., they paid to enter the venue and soon saw that it was too touristy a place, where people arrive in the typical travel agency bus. Thanks to an Asturian boy who worked there, they learned that the only way to take a picture next to the monument was to wait until two thirty in the morning.
At that time everyone leaves and that is free under the dim light of the Arctic sun. Knowing this, they went to rest in a wooden house in a nearby town, from which they returned at 23:30 p.m., in broad daylight.
As they had already agreed through the forum Bull skin, they coincided with Jesús and Almudena, who had come up from León with their orange Seat 131-1430 and Jaén license plate. They took the opportunity to see the attractions of the place, designed for tourism, and at the recommended time they got on board the "Minxi" and the Vespino to the much desired place. His dream had come true!
The return
Almudena and Jesús's advice saved them kilometers on the descent through Finland. In three days they were resting in Helsinki, from where they took a boat to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. There were eight days to go home, so the quick passage through Lithuania and Latvia allowed time to spend in Warsaw, the Polish capital.
Then, with the city of Prague programmed into the GPS, they discovered that in Slovakia there is also a small village of the same name near the Hungarian border, which meant a detour - very attractive indeed - of an additional 1200 km.
The beautiful and monumental Prague of the Czech Republic deserved a whole day, and after a brief foray into Austria the next destination was Geneva, a city well known to Luis and in which he had to say goodbye to Felix, who had to return in plane to Spain.
While waiting for Valentine, Luis walked through places that brought back memories and visited some old friends who reside in the elegant Swiss city. One more day and he arrived at Arenys de Munt, where his friend Kiku checked on Minxi. Madrid was waiting for him and, on July 29 at 22,30:18 p.m., he arrived home. Gone were 17.000 countries, 35 kilometers and XNUMX days.
[su_quote cite = '- Luis Barato'] “Almost four years from now, one thinks with nostalgia about the frankly pleasant memories of the vicissitudes experienced. And the bad times turn in the memory in own experiences of the authentic reality of the being.
The message that I spread to the incredulous and not very enterprising is one of encouragement to carry out and promote this type of tourism, not without adventure, which makes the automobile the main nucleus of this kind of event. And that forces communication, coexistence and companionship in non-habitual means of daily life.
I hope again to relive such pleasant memories, much better alone than in groups that make you distract your senses. It is you and your car, which merge into one being. " [/ su_quote]
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The incidents:
- In a Norwegian tunnel, a Polish truck grazed the entire left side of “Minxi”. In Oslo they had to wait almost two days for the accident to be repaired.
- A transmission crosshead began to sound as soon as we arrived in Norway. Many workshops were on vacation but in the end they found a replacement, again in Oslo.
- The crosshead made noise again near Perpignan. Luis continued at a slower speed to reach Arenys de Munt, where his friend Kiku was waiting for him. The noise was because it was only held by a screw ... about to come loose.
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Iron horse
The model that Luis chose to carry out this adventure is a Hillman Minx Series III with a convertible body, manufactured in 1956 and which was a novelty that year. Not in vain, Luis is the president of the "Autoclub Grupo Rootes Spain" and deep connoisseur of the vehicles built by the English brands Hillman, Humber, Singer and Sunbeam.
Singer was the first to disappear, in 1970, while her three bandmates closed their doors in 1976, in the midst of a crisis in British industry. However, they are cars that are easy for their owners to maintain and, in the case of the Hillman Minx, being a convertible and having a good boot made it the most suitable for this feat.
Before embarking on the trip, which he estimated to be 14.000 km but then he did 17.000, Luis made a budget that included a consumption of 10 l / 100 km (€ 2.100) and five oil changes (€ 240).
He also put the Hillman through a preventive overhaul and stocked up with essential parts, such as spark plugs, points, oil and air filters, a fuel pump, a water pump, a cylinder head gasket, clutch and brake cylinders and a pair of straps. It was more than enough.
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| Engine: | 4 cylinders in front longitudinal line |
| Displacement: | 1.494 cc. |
| Power: | 50 hp at 4.600 Rpm |
| Motor torque: | 92 Nm at 2.400 Rpm |
| Gearbox: | Manual, 4-speed + overdrive |
| Drive: | Rear |
| Brakes: | Drums |
| Tires: | 5.60-15 |
| Boot capacity: | 370 l |
| Fuel tank capacity: | 33 liters |
| Long wide high: | 4.115 / 1.540 / mm 1.510 |
| Roads / Battle: | 1.245 - 1.322 / 2.440 mm |
| Empty weight: | 960 kg |
| Max speed: | 130 km/h |
| Average consumption: | 9 liters |
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