Somerset to Monaco

Arkonik & b500 on tour

Words & images by Del Gregory

Setting off from Arkonik HQ I left my home in the Cotswolds at 5.45am to rendezvous with Tom and UJO at the Somerset HQ of Arkonik, arriving at 6.45am just as Tom was loading his bags and even his bike into the load bay of UJO. UJO is essentially Arkonik’s flagship Defender 110, complete with a 6.2L V8 LS3, and was to be our flag bearer for our 2,500 mile round trip to Monaco.

Leaving the leafy lanes of Mells in Somerset we headed out towards Folkestone in Kent where we were to catch our EuroTunnel train across to Calais. As ‘Tour Manager’, It had become my role to not only share the drive, but to also ensure all boxes on this epic trip were ticked, which included myriad of Covid-19 paperwork,

Eiffel Tower and UJO

M/Y La Polonia in Cannes

checklists and bar codes. However the first problem we encountered was the simple morning rush hour on the M25, which held us up and we arrived just a few minutes late for our time slot on the train.

The lovely people at EuroTunnel booked us straight onto the next one, which was only a half-hour later and we were off. Crossing is easy as you stay in the vehicle and before very long we were driving out of Calais headed for our first stop - Paris.

Paris was great. Although finding somewhere to park UJO was to become a common theme of the whole trip… car park headroom in Paris 1.8m and UJO needs 2.0m. After two hours of circling our hotel (which had no car park), we finally managed to park - just as the heavens opened and we got soaked walking from the vehicle to the hotel. Suddenly it was beer time and the rooftop bar had a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower and we had ‘arrived’.

Next day saw us up nice and early for a few Eiffel Tower shots before starting the long haul down to Nice. We drove all day, eventually arriving into Nice at 8pm and UJO had performed brilliantly the whole day. Never asking for anything…except maybe more fuel!

Over the coming few days UJO was seen by so many people and everyone seemed to like the look and sound as we drove from town to town along the Cote d’azur. We took time out to visit the Cannes Yachting Festival and visited with Burgess Yachts, who very kindly invited us onboard the M/Y La Polonia for a good look around.

The following day having left Cannes we took a drive along the coast to visit the famous Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat. The scenery on route was spectacular and the shine on UJO was incredible. Keeping to the coast road we eventually entered into Monaco,

Monaco / Casino Square

where once again the parking became an issue, although we did finally find an underground car park which had a 2.0m headroom. I had arranged to meet an old friend, Rupert Nelson who heads up the Mega-Yacht sales at Burgess Monaco, and together Rupert, myself & Tom had lunch, where I got to recount stories from my past consultancy life with Rupert when I used to work more from Monaco. Happy and fun times.

In the evening we managed to secure a prime position on Casino Square for UJO, (due to the maître d’hôtel being a huge Defender fan), whilst we had dinner at the Cafe de Paris. Later when we came back out, we were pleased to see a bunch of Instagram vloggers had circled UJO and we were pleased to chat and answer questions, while the owner of an arriving Bugatti Chiron had little to no attention… (if only for a few minutes).

The trip so far had been a huge success for both the shake-down and promo of UJO, and for b500 capturing images and stories for this issue, but it wasn’t over quite yet…

Scenery on route

Cap Ferrat

Tom Parry

The following day we left Monaco, Cannes & Nice behind and began our long drive back up through France to Reims, where we stayed overnight and UJO once again became the centre of attention, with the concierge absolutely insisting he parked UJO, and which seemed to include him screeching off around the block?! From Reims we drove the 7 km out of town to the circuit Reims-Gueux which was a Grand Prix motor racing road course, located in Gueux, and was established in 1926 as the second venue of the Grand Prix de la Marne.

I think it’s fair to say we were both surprised to find the old paddock areas at the side of what is now a main road,

Reims-Gueux

Del Gregory

not only still completely intact, but completely as they once were and with not a bit of graffiti or damage. Quite remarkable and a fantastic way to (almost) end our epic trip. One or two Champagne houses later and we were then finally back at our hotel in Reims, where we packed up UJO for the last time and headed the following morning for Calais.

What can I say. An epic 2,500 mile trip which showed UJO to a whole new fan base and without missing a beat for the whole way there and back. We arrived back where we started at Arkonik HQ in Somerset and with some great images and stories to tell of our epic adventure with the Arkonik UJO.

Pommery Champagne