Gadgetory

to get team Jaguar up to speed with what the actual Mille Miglia requires it teamed up with the Caledonian classic and historic motorsport club to create a mini miglia of sorts not only would I get the chance to spend some time with the glorious c-type I'll be driving across Italy but also with its owner and my co-driver then I the car is one of the first production ctypes made and is running about 285 brake horsepower it has a race history though never raced at the mille in its heyday then however has raced it a fair bit in the 26 years he's owned it I've driven a seat height before and I'm well aware of two things one how much they're worth and two how very different they are to the kind of cars unused to the gearbox is tricky the steering heavy throttle response amazing but the Briggs not so much oh and the clutch is really springy so the cars a bit tricky but nowhere near as difficult as the drive you see the mini and by extension Mille Miglia isn't a race but a rally a rally that requires perfect timing talent endurance and skill there's three main things to look out for the first is the root book confusing right well one very similar is going to be our Bible in Italy it shows us how far we should have gone how far since the last direction and what we need to look out for to show we've been there the second are the control stages you've got to drive as smoothly as possible at a certain speed over a set distance easy in something modern less so when you target speeds in kilometers an hour and your speedos over 50 years old and works in miles the final bits the real killer the regularity stages like the controls you have to maintain an average speed over a set distance within a larger stage and it's time so they know exactly when you're mucking about unlike my last trip to Italy this isn't a point-to-point Blair this is going to require real concentration we practice for an afternoon while the Millie will be four solid days of driving the mini media what I thought was going to be quite entertaining and you know very jolly he is going to be that but it's also going to be a serious amount of work and concentration and you know what I can't wait