Doris goes to MonteCarlo

crowd no end Even Doris, as always on full lurch, received the odd cheer And had there been a prize for slowest car, we would have won it Maybe next time

ONCE A RALLY DRIVER, always a rally driver So, when the Bugatti Owners’ Club announced Rallye Prescott 2022, its inaugural day/night, competitive hillclimb to run on 5 November, yours truly and Doris the Daimler were first in the queue Of course, it was very wet and (later) very dark, and very, very slippery, but that just added to the atmosphere

Seventy iconic and raucous classics – think Lancia 037, Audi Quattro and Metro 6R4 –adorned the floodlit paddock before charging up the famous hill in rapid succession, mostly sideways, which pleased the big

Next on the agenda is the tough Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique 2023, running exactly one week after the modern World Rally Championship event in January and utilising much of the same route, including stages, although in deference to age, average speeds are much reduced No fewer than 284 crews will set out from five start points – Oslo, London (Brooklands Museum), Bad Homburg, Reims and Turin – and cover an exhausting 600km overnight route, punctuated by a series of time controls, before arriving in Monaco. This is only the beginning.

After a well-earned night in bed, the rally moves up into the mountains for three full days of competition, now using Valence as its base. Eventually the circus of classic cars returns, via further regularity stages, to Monte-Carlo, where they enter parc fermé. Servicing is forbidden before the teams head back into the nearby Alps, where the final 150km night-loop beckons. Taking in mountain passes that have long passed into rallying folklore, it will probably include both the Col de Braus and Col de Turini: not a bad way to end.

That just leaves the long and winding downhill journey back into Monte-Carlo where, now parked up harbourside, drivers and navigators, as well as their service crews, will no doubt quaff the odd glass, or bottle, of self-congratulatory Champagne I can assure you that, at two in the

In the meantime, only one car entered is older than Doris And this is where my friends at Retro Engineering (more at retroengineering couk) enter the equation Experts in race preparation, they lavish the same care and attention on my old Daimler as they do on their championship-winning BMW 1800 With their support, and a big slice of luck, we’ll make it to the finish