TOUR OF THE MOOR
Old Skool Ford’s Tour Of The Moor features great roads, scenery — and classics.
Old Skool Fords head to Dartmoor.
The third Old Skool Ford Tour of the Moor happened over a fine sunny West Country weekend. With 52 cars booked in to the tour and great weather to boot, all the ducks were neatly lined up in a row for a great weekend.
On Saturday morning the happy campers rose early and gathered at the River Dart Country Park to swap anecdotes about their cars and respective journeys. The tour set off — the air full of burbling exhausts and carbs, and the park lit up by the bright vibrant colours that only old cars seem to have.
Leaving the campsite and heading to the moors, the trail led up towards Saddle Tor and Hay Tor with some great hairpins and switchbacks setting the tight twisty course that was planned for the first section of the route before heading towards Bovey Tracey.
Before we got to Bovey Tracey we turned right for Manaton. It was at this point we had a change of scenery and used small back roads that only the locals know about. The narrow winding roads took us through Manaton and North Bovey. Once these small villages were past we had a quick blast up the main road heading north. Then a left turn to Chagford and right turn for Throwleigh. The country roads got narrow again with tight turns and sharp hills.
Skirting around the Moors left a few casualties including organiser, Chris Deacon’s Mk1 Mexico with electrical gremlins and Kev Lowe’s XE-equipped Mk2 with overheating when a hose came off.
Both cars got up and running again and lived on to enjoy the rest of the tour. The tight bits soon over, once at Sticklepath the roads opened up and all enjoyed the opportunity to open up along the A30, bypassing Okehampton for a chance to get some air through the cars. After leaving the A30 we travelled through Bridestowe and on to Lydford. Like chalk and cheese this road was long and straight. Passing Brent Tor we arrived in Tavistock under the old Railway viaduct.
It was now time to head to the old RAF Harrowbeer site at Yelverton for lunch from the Oggy Oggy Pasty Company. The lunch stop gave the entrants time to re-group and also time to chat and for the cars to cool down. Once the group were fed the tour set off for a lap of Burrator reservoir. Now back on open moorland roads, Sheepstor was quickly passed before heading on to Cadover. At the highest points you could look out over Plymouth, with Plymouth Sound in the distance and behind us lay the reservoir. Cornwood was soon passed as the cars left the Moor and headed back to camp on the old roads that were in use before the A38 was built.
Back at base, it was time to chill, mark the treasure hunt questions and socialise some more during the evening quiz — congratulations to Steve Lyndon, who pipped Ben Drake by half a point to win the treasure hunt, and Peter Slavin and Zoe Davidson for winning the quiz.
This year’s Tour Of The Moor takes place over the weekend of June 26-28.