Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

He could go from Richingford, to Richiville, on the island nation of Richington.

When you own the country you can commute how the fuck you want.

BRM, I may have found your boat...https://goo.gl/images/ZYxSPE

Lamborghini riva for me.

Dragboats doe.

Also mine. With a small corner of the boat locker saved for some fiberglass and metal flake 70s jet boat, with 2000hp supercharged elephant motor.

Route to Italy planned:

Not enough Alpine passes but the really good ones don't open until June so we're just going to do the Great St Bernard Pass on the way down and maybe, if Gottard is open, we'll do it on the way back

In other "scalp" news, 718 Cayman S was a solid match, I was top of 3rd and hung right on his bumper, and then dropped back maybe half a car length because I did a gentle gear change, but then hoovered him back in once in 4th, had to fully let off to avoid going into the back of him at about 5.5k in 4th.

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What points do you have to visit, and is there a time scale? Looking at toll roads or scenic?

That's 5 days, aside from Dover and the GSB pass, they're where we're stopping overnight. Torre Colimena is the end location.

It's about 5 hours/day which is about the maximum I want to expose the boy to. Due to the fact we need to do it that quickly, it's mostly autoroutes (some tolls) apart from Switzerland and Italy, but if I smash the miles in the 1st 2 days and we end up doing our distance in 4 hours or less, I can look to extend the journeys on days 3, 4, and 5.

Not planning on sightseeing on the way down, time is looking to be split between driving or picnicing, the sightseeing will be the views from the car or the picnic. I don't want to take the boy from being strapped in the car seat to strapped in the pushchair, doesn't give him any free kick about time, so most likely going to stock up on tomatoes, cheese, meat, and bread every morning so we can eat well at the picnics.

His bed time is about 19:30 but his evening wind down time is about an hour, so ideally we'd arrive at where we're staying for the night at 18:00 to give us time to "set up" then get him chilling out, feeding, bath, then bed. He usually wakes up between 06:00 and 07:00 so by the time we're packed up and on the road I'm thinking we'll have about 10 hours to the next stop, so basically 1 hour rest time for every 1 hour on the road.

Obviously you have to be fluid but that's the current plan.

On the way back we've only got 4 days but he'll be a month older which is an eternity at this stage, so we think he'll manage an extra hour or two in the car per day on the way back.

I realise that doesn't sound like the dreamy, laissez-faire attitiude that some might take to such a road trip but that comes when we get to Italy. He's still a bit young and averse to the car sear for us to subject him to 12 hour days of driving on scenic roads.

Ha. When I was 7ish we drove to Hungary, straight! Long doesn’t cut it.

5 hours a day is plenty.

Yeah once me and my sis were a bit older we used to do really long drives, but my son is only 4 months old at the moment.

Yeah right idea. I wouldn’t want to do that with 4month old.
Long driver are never fun, whatever age.

Could be a bit vommy on long twisty bits too!

Yep. Vom central. No way in hell Is do this with a 4 month old.

Send mum and baby on a plane. You drive like a dick. Perfect.

Bit of brat progress: before/after of the front end.
Finally managed to source both replacement windows, and have a new windscreen seal on the way from Australia.
All the chassis and structural work is basically done now, ready to start sorting out the body work- the fun bit!

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Beefy

Maybe a bit overkill, but i'd rather slightly overbuild it than go too light. The top rail (which took most of a day to design and make, and still need the ends trimming down) was added to replace the bolt-on, metal bumper, and the lower replace the mangled, old cross-member. This is all going to be covered by a fibreglass bumper.

Edit: A bit more detail on the fabrication of the top horizontal rail: it started off as a bit of 60x40x2mm box, which I slit and re-welded to make the narrower bit, to allow for an extra, lower grille. As careful as i was, the heat from this welding distorted the section, putting a fairly uniform bend in it. To fix This, I had to make perpendicular slits along the bent section, and re-weld them, whilst the whole thing was clamped to a stiff section of heavy steel pipe. It was a lot more work than it needed to be, but happy with the finished result. Nice and straight now. Then used the same technique to taper the ends in to the same angle as the headlight surrounds. Because the box is stiffer in this plane, it didn't bend s noticeable amount .
Anyone with some welding experience know how I could have avoided the bend?

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I think the main thing with traveling with a young baby is just to make sure you get them out of the car regularly. I wouldn't go more than 2 hours without stopping.
When our girl was 6 months we had to do a 90 minute drive to woolongong... It took us 4 hours ha! Sydney traffic meant she slept for the first half, then cried for the last half and had stop halfway to let her out to calm down. Deffo build in flexible timeline.

Ha. I remember the drive from Perth to Margaret river with my three month old. Fuck me. That was a 3.5 hr drive that took nearly six. Worse than the flight!

I had to go and do the shopping to get away from it. When I came back, Sarah was balling, so she went back into the shops.

You’ll be fine, though, Saadat- what’s the worst that could happen? :)

You could drive at night on the legs when you just want cover miles

Oh man, that feeling when even the supermarket ailes offer solace and just a few minutes respite..

We're lucky I think - did 3 hours non stop at the weekend and ours didn't even bat an eyelid. 2.5 months. In fairness they get more chance to get used to car travel here than in London.

We go to the in laws in wilts quite a lot, which is 2.5-3hrs. He’s good with it all now. Normally asleep after about 20 mins

Congratulations, btw. I didn’t know you were parents. Great news. Sarah’s out your way in September. I’m trying to tsg along but it looks doubtful.

No idea about welding I'm afraid but I like where your project is going! What about the rusty bits on the panels, will you be welding new metal in there as well?