Treadbare in Piedmont

The early morning air is cold, and low mist blankets the landscape as I set out from Langres in France’s oddly labelled Grande Est. Shadowy features of hills and trees loom out of the murk along the roadside. Despite the cold, there is no wind, the fog almost cloying in its immobility. Blades of wind turbines, static and statuesque slice through the veiled stillness. This one, its vertical blade a Heatherwick spire, the next, all askance, a huge pair of scissors, then three or four, line astern, spokes on a rimless wheel. Trees and buildings emerge but then the cloud thickens again and they vanish, and I am left chasing the dim pair of red lights that cut a path ahead of me, veering in and out of a tunnel of white. I am not alone on the road – ahead of me the familiar backside of AMT – a Frazer Nash that I have followed all over Europe.

But I am alone in my car, open to the element, but getting some warmth from under the dashboard. I am grateful for my scarf but wished I had bothered to retrieve the gloves from behind the seat. I am content, comforted by the steady thrum of the exhaust. It is a heartbeat, and I subconsciously monitor it, feeling its pulse, sensing the rhythm – alert for every twitch or dropped beat. I glance at my instruments; all seems well. I am happy.

Was it like this for Flight Lieutenant Alfred Fane Peers Agabeg, that fateful night in 1942? Returning from an aborted mission to photograph U boat pens in Flensburg, alone in his spitfire. The thrum would not have been from a pedestrian Anzani engine, but from a supercharged Merlin. I am sure that in his long flights to seek out the Tirpitz in the Norwegian fiords he would have felt that same mix of reassurance and anxiety, eyeing instruments, checking gauges, scanning the watery horizons, probably stiff, cold and hungry, needing to stretch and looking forward to a beer in the mess. That day the weather was closing in, but he was able to make it to Coltishall in Norfolk, where he landed safely. But being the man he was, and keen to return to his home base at Benson, he set off again in the lowering cloud, and while trying to land in a field adjacent to a railway line near Duxford, clipped a telegraph pole. He was thrown from the plane but died in the impact.

Fane with his BMW 328

So, what has Agabeg got to do with anything? He never used that name, calling himself Fane in his professional and personal life, adding the initials AFP. Think Perelman, Taylor Rowling perhaps. Maybe I would have done the same if I had been called Alfred Agabeg and was an aspirant racing driver. All Nashmen love Fane. He is the archetypical (Archietypical?) boy’s own hero. Racing driver extraordinaire, committed Frazer Nash owner and driver, and then heroic spitfire pilot. But I have special reason to value him; he raced the works Nurburg Frazer Nash in the 1932 German grand prix, one of two Nashes entered. The other one? The car I sit in as the sun gradually burns through the vaporous Juran air.

What would he think if he knew that slightly whacky devotees of the marque were still driving across Europe in these peculiar cars? In great age would he have harboured a teary nostalgia for the cars he loved to race, or would he have moved on, dismissing, as did the septuagenarian Gabriel Voisin in the 1960s, when asked for help with restoration of one of his cars, telling the writer to forget about the past and go buy one of Issigonis’ brilliant new Minis. Fane certainly embraced the technology and designs of the new 328 BMWs that pushed Frazer Nash off the podium in the Alpine Rally, realising that by 1938 the Nash chassis and transmission was history. I think he probably would have thought us bonkers. Mmm . . . maybe he was on to something.

But I am happy, not just that the car sings its rhythmic thrum of contentment, but because I like doing this; I am happy inside and out. I suppose that with any journey out of the ordinary there is a sense of anxiety: will I complete the solo cycle ride across the Andes, will the cardboard boat make it to St Kilda, will the lunar module’s rockets fire, but before the angst of the suspicion of a problem there is a thrill; perhaps, just perhaps the worst might not happen.

The previous night six cars converged on Le Cheval Blanc in Langres, where, after hugs and warm handshakes and back slapping, a wonderfully dissipated maître d' served us duck and pinot noir. This breed of middle aged serveurs, are just not seen north of le manche. A career waiter who appeared to have slept in a cupboard in the same shirt since being cast in a Truffaut movie in 1960. Gaunt, a scar or two, crumpled as a paper bag, the profile of a Bateman toff, presumably a Gaulois smouldering just out of sight in the kitchen. Competent and professional, yes, but unable to avoid service with a grudging sneer, a forget that he had fared worse than those he serve.

But now the sun is dismantling the miasma and valleys and rivers emerge. The curve of the empty road opens ahead, as seductive as any feminine offering - well perhaps not quite, but Nashmen love bendy roads. Hills gather confidence and grow up, the soft landscape coarsens, and crags and rocks appear. Then as then as we approach the Swiss border there is a proper mountain and the grandeur of the Alps unfolds.

We are heading for the Apennines, at least that is what Robin suggested nine months ago, based on Andrea’s enjoyment of Eric Newby’s wonderful memoir. In fact, Carolyn had a go at the itinerary, and before we knew it, Newby’s colourful terroir had expanded to include the cultural landmarks of Toscana and Umbria. But tonight, we aim for Guttannen, the other side of Interlaken, ready for a whizz over a high pass or two the tomorrow and a night at Lago di Orta, there I should meet my girl who is taking the ‘easy option’ and flying out.

But I am about to make her easy option less so . . .

There is something slightly peculiar about the steering, and when I look at the front tyres, they are nearly bald, very unevenly worn, and the tracking looks odd; with toe-out instead of toe in. I am going to need some new boots on the front. I do some rapid Googling to find if I can get a pair anywhere en route. No chance. The helpful English supplier can’t assist with anything like the urgency I need. But I have some tyres at home on the mezzanine. Caro is travelling with hand luggage only, could she manage a couple of 4.50 x 19 strapped to her handbag? I commence negotiations and signs are promising. We would just need to find a centro pneumatico somewhere near Lago di Orta.

The hotel in Gutannen is very Swiss and full of robust hikers. They are bemused by the arrival of six weird cars, whose owners jump out and take them to pieces in the car park. The main problem seems to be tyre issues, but the collective mentality works perfectly – with spares enough to go round. My single room has no bathroom, and the corridor is full of men in underwear clutching towels and bidding me guten abend, but the beer is fine and the shower has a huge window opening onto the grassy mountainside and a heard of tinkling Simmentals.

Tomorrow the thrill of the Grimsel Pass. A chance to use up that last bit of tread on the basis that super-courier Carolina will deliver the goods.