| Picture: Image Bank |
Feeling the breeze in your hair as you glide along a smooth
Dutch highway in a classic car can only be truly enjoyed when
you’ve overcome your fear of denting, twanging or writing off
someone’s highly valuable labour of love.
Driving a classic car is a two-man job. It means giving your full
attention to one of the grand dames of the road. Map reading is a
job on its own. James Bond might have employed the ejector seat in
his silver Aston Martin but you’d be well advised not to
dispense with your navigator.
Fortunately, classic car company the Grand Touring Club supplied
detailed directions for a whirlwind three-day tour from the Hook of
Holland to Cuxhaven via Arnhem, Hamlin, Hanover and Bremen.
Driving straight off the ferry, we were greeted by amazed,
wide-eyed pedestrians and motorists who stared and smiled as one
memorable car after another from a bygone era paraded past
them.
If you like constant attention then these are the cars for you
— a 1968 Porsche 911T, a 1970 Aston Martin DB6, a replica
1930s Jaguar Suffolk SS100, a 1969 Triumph TR6 and a 1975 Triumph
Stag.
Handling one of these masterpieces is entirely different from
driving a modern car. Beautiful to behold, it’s easy to
forget the Aston Martin is two tonnes worth of luxury machinery,
and when you’re rounding a corner you can really feel that
weight. Being a rear-wheel drive automatic, it was definitely a
regal, grand tourer rather than a nippy sports car, seldom getting
above a stately 60mph – Sean Connery wouldn’t have
outrun many villains in this.
The Porsche 911, on the other hand, responded superbly,
alternatively growling and purring as though there was a beast
under the bonnet. Hitting 100mph was all too easy.
The two Triumph cars were light, sporty and fun to drive with quick
acceleration and nimble, easy handling. Being small, they also
instilled a little more confidence on foreign roads and, with a
shorter wheelbase, they were much easier to manoeuvre than the
other cars.
But, surprisingly, the best drive of the bunch was the Suffolk
SS100. It might look like something out of Wind in the Willows, but
with a four-litre engine it packed a lot of power. Just be prepared
for the elements when you have the soft top down.
Hit the road
From its scenic highways, Holland almost seems a pastiche of itself
— a pancake-flat landscape, tulip greenhouses, hundreds of
bicycles and postcard views with those famous canals. However, as
you drive east it becomes obvious that the country isn’t a
living, breathing stereotype. The landscape changes entirely, with
farming land and verdant green countryside giving way to dense
forest. There are even hillier stretches of road.
The country’s largest national park, De Hoge Veluwe, which
lies just short of the German border, is beautiful, yet eerie and
desolate in places. Marked by wide-open spaces and thick forest, it
stretches over 5,500 hectares of woodland, heath, sand drifts and
lakes.
In the middle of this vast area can be found the
Kröller-Müller Museum, which houses one of the
world’s greatest collections of Van Gogh paintings.
Crossing into Germany, we steeled ourselves for a change of pace.
However, the autobahns are not the ‘boy racer’ dream
routes they used to be. Famous for not having any speed limits,
drivers now have to be careful as many stretches now carry a 75mph
restriction, often enforced by speed cameras. Generally though, the
fast lane is still not for the faint-hearted — fast and
furious BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches can hit speeds of up to
150mph.
However, the scenery along the autobahns isn’t much to write
home about. You are better off sticking to local byways and
discovering Germany’s beautiful countryside, rivers, castles
and historic towns.
We stopped briefly in Hamlin, of Pied Piper fame, in Lower Saxony
before moving on to Hanover, two of the region’s
‘Wonderful Nine’ cities, They boast medieval city
centres, half-timbered houses and, in Hanover, some wonderfully
preserved baroque gardens.
Last stop was a quick lunch in Bremen, home to a vast Gothic
cathedral, as well as modern attractions such as the International
Space Station.
The least-expected part of the tour was the blissfully quiet roads.
Compared with the congested motorways and A-roads of the UK, this
makes driving an enjoyable, rather than stressful and frustrating,
experience.
