The romance of driving is illusive these days. For most places in the UK, gone are the days when you could jump in the car, hit the road and drive carefree – drive without fear of congested junctions, endless red lights and overbearing police.
The sheer volume of traffic on the road, and the rules required to keep all those vehicles safe, has put paid to that.
Perhaps that’s why Top Gear is so popular. Viewers can live out their automobile fantasies through the insouciant adventures of Clarkson, Hammond and May.
The good news is, despite modern constraints, the thrill of the open road is still out there – you just have to know where to look. Oh, and of course, what to drive.
We’ve recently happened across two interesting driving experiences. Though very much at the opposite ends of the luxury versus budget scale, they ultimately offer the same attraction – the chance to tour fantastic, picturesque places in fun cars.
First up, the budget version. A husband and wife team, Franck and Sandrine, from the Lot Valley in France, have set up Escapade en Véhicules Anciens (note: the site’s in French, though Google translate is fairly helpful here). Loosely translated, their venture means Escapades in Ancient Cars, which we reckon sounds pretty romantic.
Essentially, they’re offering the chance to drive a number of different routes through the Lot Valley in a “vintage” car built between the 1960s and 1980s – trips can be arranged for anything between one to seven days.
The predominantly French list includes a Citröen 2CV, an original VW Beetle and a rather shoddy looking Renault 4. Whether or not these cars are actually vintage or simply well known is … well we shall leave you to decide.
In stark contrast to Escapade en Véhicules Anciens is The Cognoscenti. Promising glamour, romance and mystique, this Scottish company (they provided the featured image at the top of this post) proposes an altogether more exclusive opportunity.
And when say “exclusive”, we really mean it. To be eligible for one of The Cognoscenti’s one to five day tours through rural Scotland, participants must bring their own prestigious classic car (quite how prestige is determined here we’re not sure). Previous entrants have included a 1924 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, a 1970 Ferrari Daytona, and an Aston Martin DB5.
On one trip in 2012, the combined value of the gathered vehicles was conservatively estimated to be well in excess of £15m.
We can’t help but wonder if we’d be allowed to join in with an old, beat-up Citröen 2CV. It is, in the eyes of many, a classic car after all.
Read our blogs on the world’s most scenic drives. They’re so spectacular we had to split them in two: The world’s most scenic drives and The world’s most scenic drives – Part 2.
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
