‘Another bucket list tick’
Brian King took a Spitfire sortie to Spain via the Pyrenees
After a serious fall at work, my dream of driving my 1979 Triumph Spitfire to our holiday home in Spain suddenly seemed impossible. I had fractured two vertebrae and was in a back brace for eight weeks, but had previously planned my epic drive, booking the ferry for July. I bought it three years ago, with just 56,000 miles on the clock and a full and complete history of its three previous owners, with MOT’S and every receipt of all the work that had ever been carried out on it.
I decided from the start that it deserved a full refurbishment, which started with the bodywork. The car was gone through, front to back including paint and an engine rebuild… sadly I couldn’t do all of it myself thanks to my injury. However, as the days and weeks passed, my back got a lot better. The race was now on to get the car tested and ready for the big journey as well as getting myself fit enough to drive the long distance. I had to complete 800 miles to ‘run in’ the newly reconditioned engine and then change the oil, so
I drove it as often as I could, trying to do some fairly long runs in order to fully test its performance.
As July approached, my friend who was to accompany me started to plan the journey. We were to drive from Grimsby to
Portsmouth on July 6 in order to catch the overnight Brittany ferry to Caen in Normandy, France. On the following day we would drive through France to Lourdes and then on the Monday we would drive on through the Pyrenees and down to our holiday home in a little village called El Mojon, which is situated in the south eastern region right on the Mediterranean coast and exactly on the border of Alicante and Murcia.
I am delighted to say that all went well and as planned. Throughout the trip we tried to avoid motorways where possible and where time allowed. Unfortunately, on setting off on Saturday July 6, it was raining in Grimsby and so the roof had to stop up until we reached Oxford, where the skies cleared to a fine afternoon. We boarded the ferry for the 11pm sailing from Portsmouth. It was wonderful to sail through Portsmouth’s historical dockland, seeing HMS Victory and the new HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier.
We docked in Caen early on the Sunday morning and drove to Le Mans, where we
‘I had to make sure that the car and I were fit for the road trip’
stopped at Le Mans racing circuit. Then we pressed on to Poitiers, Angouleme and Pau and finally to Lourdes for an overnight stop. Early Monday morning saw heavy mist and so the car roof had to be put up until we reached the Spanish side of the Pyrenees but the scenery along the route was staggering, the Spitfire working really hard over some of the passes.
We sped along the N260 to Huesca and Zaragoza then took the A23 to Valencia and finally the A7 down the coast to Alicante. Once there we took the N332 coast road to our little village of El Mojon near to Pilar de la Horadada and San Pedro del Pinatar just north of the salt lagoon of La Manga.
After spending a week relaxing in the Spanish sunshine in our holiday home, we departed early on Monday July 15 back to England, but this time we had planned a slightly different route back via the independent principality of Andorra, passing through the Pyrenees to Pamiers and finally arriving for an overnight stay in Toulouse, very late! The following day we set off to Montauban, Brive-lagaillarde, Limoges and Chateauroux and then on to Caen, arriving in time to catch the overnight ferry to Portsmouth. We arrived back home in Grimsby safe and sound by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. ■