Points failure south of Cambrai

It is 5.30 and although Kent is in my book east, there is not a hint of light in the cool night sky. We ease onto the horrible motorway and take our place in the line of juggernauts thundering towards the channel, every corner of the behemoths illuminated by a different coloured LED. But it’s cool and Nashy seems to like it. The temperature gauge registers a cool 50, (Celsius, surprisingly for a pre-war car). We count off the miles and risk overtaking the slower trucks, and then get bolder and race into the outside lane. The good thing about driving a Frazer Nash – as opposed to many vintage cars – is that they go fast and so you don’t get trapped behind a truck going just a bit slower than your cruising speed.

I count off the miles with growing confidence. Whatever our ailment is it is certainly better when it is cool. The most feasible possibility suggested by our panel of experts was fuel vaporisation related to the complex fuel feed to the four carburettors. Little chance of anything vaporisation at 5 in the morning on the M20!

The phone pings. It is Louise to say they have arrived at the terminal. Where are we?

Twenty minutes later we join them in the departure lounge queuing for a Starbucks coffee and a soggy croissant. Well, it looks like we will make it to France at least.

The day is burgeoning, warm sunshine becoming fierce heat, and we are tooling along a motorway heading south past St Omer. Julian pulls over into an ‘aire’ with a misfire. For once it is not us that is the problem, the red car is running fine. Julian’s misfire is troublesome enough for us to decide to leave the motorway – which we were only using to get a few miles under our belt through that boring bit of the Pas de Calais. He changes a spark plug and we press on. Then as our car gets hotter, once again we notice the dreaded spluttering and misfiring, just episodically at first, but then more persistently. Peter looks straight ahead with a glum set to his jaw. We stop, open the bonnet and scratch our heads. A gendarme appears and asks where the red triangle is and why we are not wearing our chemise jeune. But while trying to demonstrate that the car is en panne, I press the starter and it fires.

We head onward, only to repeat the episode ten miles further on. Julian is always so calm. His misfire is minor and responds to cleaning spark plugs. He doesn’t seem phased by the fact that we might bring a halt to the whole enterprise.

The next time we stop I notice something different. The engine just completely dies and when I test for a spark there is none, but then a second later there is. What if our focus on fuel and fuel pumps is looking in the wrong direction? Could it be the ignition circuit? Perhaps the electrical feed to the coil and distributor? I check the feed to the coil which is fine but the feed out of the distributor is not, the ‘make and break’ that opens and closes the points with a spring to generate the spark is not breaking. We take it off and dismantle it. The spring breaks in half as I remove it. At last, we have a diagnosis, and one that we can fix. It only takes fifteen minutes to fit the spare and we are back on track. Only 200 kms to go till our hotel near Bar-le-Duc, our spirits soar as we bowl along the straight tree lined roads of the L’Anse towards Reims.

It is strange that it can still be so difficult to differentiate between a problem with the spark and a problem with fuel, but perhaps I made a cross for my back by having four carburettors, and that evening I have work to do taking off the additional fuel pump and trying to readjust the fuelling to how it was before our problems started. I am optimistic that the problem is solved.

The hotel is delightful. A friendly auberge that serves us simple food without a choice and a good local pinot noir. By nine the next morning we are doing what we came to do; drive a fast vintage sports car down empty winding roads through the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. It’s great. All those cliches about wind in your hair, the rasp of the exhaust, sliding the tail around a tight bend, the beautiful countryside flashing past in warm sunshine. Bloody marvellous.

But then it isn’t, for completely different reasons. We didn’t pick the best route and as we approach the Rhine we can’t find a compromise between busy semi-urban roads, replete with their roundabouts, traffic lights and Sunday drivers, and motorways with their poisonous juggernauts. We head into Switzerland and things get worse, a traffic jam in a hot fumy tunnel that sets the temperature gauge heading towards 90. We are stationary and it is not just the car that is fretting. The satnav doesn’t work in the tunnel and there are multiple exits with signs that mean nothing. We have also lost Julian and Louise in the tunnel.

But eventually we get to Altdorf and our Airbnb and cold beer. These are long days but there is no alternative.

Then over the St Gothard and down into what turns out to be more of same. We can’t believe how built-up southern Switzerland is, and Italy is no better. Lugano, Como, Bergamo, all a trail of roundabouts and traffic. We end up doing the last 50 miles on the motorway and struggle to find high octane fuel, ending up with a tank full of what passes for paraffin. Then we are at the hotel, Carolyn is waiting, having taken the train up from Rome and we only have 80 miles to go in the morning to the ferry terminal for our boat to Patras. An Italian meal delights and is a fitting valedictory for Peter who flies home the next morning.

Now it is Caro and me in the car, spluttering through the marches of Veneto due to the bad fuel. With ten miles to go something terrible happens to the clutch, there is a frightful vibration, and our speed is halved. I dare not stop and look as we must meet a check-in deadline. We jerk into the booking area and meet the three other cars who have come via Germany, Austria and the Brenner pass into Alto Adige. Hugs and congratulations all round.

HX makes it up the ramp, with terrifying noises and a shower of sparks coming from underneath, but by a mixture of gesticulations and Caro’s Italian and Greek we secure a place with a bit of space around the car. The journey is 30 hours. Tomorrow morning we will have to do some serious fettling to sort out what ails the clutch and need a bit of room to get at things.

But we will get to Greece even if we roll by gravity down the ramps onto the hard at Patras Port.

The ever helpful crew provide crucial tools to release the clutch plate in the steamy hold of the ferry. Three hours of sweaty graft and the problem is solved.