Dolomite Sprint!

In 1932 a team of three Talbot AV105 Talbots won an Alpine cup for a rally held in the Dolomites. To celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary ten Talbots, including two of the three cars that took part, set off to follow the route of the original event. Sadly the third team car is in a museum in Switzerland, and the owner wouldn’t bring it out.

AYL 2 was at one time pre-war a single seater racer, and competed regularly at Brooklands in the hands of Doctor Roth. My friend Nicky Ward has owned the car for some years and used it for classic rallies in Ireland. Now, following a total rebuild, he was set to give it a further testing.

Bright and early on a Friday morning Nicky arrived at my house, having caught an overnight ferry from Ireland, and, after much head scratching, my minimum luggage was stowed away in the limited space available, the car being a narrow two seater with boat tail.

The first leg of  the journey took us to Dover, where the next morning we linked up with some more cars to catch the ferry to Calais, and then travelled on the St. Dizier. Here another two cars joined, and the next day we ploughed across France, entered Switzerland at Basle, and then on to Davos, covering three hundred and forty miles in ten hours, despite heavy traffic and being static in a huge jam in Basle for nearly two hours.

Now the fun began, and the next few days were spent storming various mountain passes around Cortina, and then we moved the base to Livigno, on the Swiss/Italian border. From here we put the stop watch on and did the Stelvio (9,000 feet), trying to beat the time set in 1932. Unfortunately a German in a Kia Sorrento completed screwed us up by refusing to move over for the last two miles, so the next day we had to go back and have another go!

In all we did twenty-two mountain passes before setting off back to Calais, from Livigno. Leaving the hotel at 8am we had two passes to do before getting to the autostrade, and then it was the long haul across Switzerland and France to Calais. The six hundred and fifty-seven miles took us twelve hours, not bad for a car built in 1934!

The final day dawned, and it was raining! We had not had the hood up, such as it is, for the entire ten days, but now there was no option, and as we reached Dover we now had to contend with falling water.  The car has no side screens and only one wiper, which works rather erratically and clears a very small space on the screen, resulting in conditions not conducive to quick driving. However, we plodded on, and arrived back in North Wales having covered two thousand five hundred miles, during our absence. The car was now well and truly ‘run in’!

For the technically minded the car is 3.5 litres straight six with twin carbs, producing 175 bhp. The gear box is pre-select, enabling quick changes very much like today’s paddle boxes, and top speed (when you are brave enough) is 100 mph on current gearing. The brakes are rod operated

Ian Glass