Pan-Alps high altitude 911 crossing

[red67]

my girlfriend and i were planning to do a european trip a month or so ago, crossing the alps in our old car. my dream is to take the old oil burner across that beautiful scenary and enjoy the road trip. it's inspired from my love of the opening sequence of the miura in 'the italian job' 1968.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xEl4UsVPWoY


unfortunately deadlines and work got in the way this year, and we postponed it until next summer. so it's slightly saddening but also really exciting to look forward to.
the plan is to play it by ear but roughly gps our way down through germany into austria, italy and back up through france and germany to home in denmark.
we did a similar snowboarding trip last winter in torrential snowstorms but with a more modern car without problems but i'm posting this for 2 reasons:

firstly inspiration: to get me through the winter - 911s in the alps just look awesome - i need some pictorial eye candy to get my enthusiasm up there through the dark winter. there has to be some out there?

and secondly advice: the car's a 69 in tip top condition, but these old things can always slap you in the face. i have full european coverage for breakdowns. snowchains wont be an issue in the summer. but any words of advice and preparation (and technical advice) we should consider taking such a big trip?
i'm a true porsche lover and can perform routine maintenance and simple fixes but mechanically i leave big jobs to my mechanic through my lack of skills.

thanks for reading this far. hope you can help.

[cak]

Sounds like a wonderful trip. Beware of the weather when you're planning - the window of time when all the high passes is open is surprisingly short.

I did a historic endurance rally a few years back; we went from Spa to Florence in early September. Two of the passes we were supposed to cross were closed by sudden unexpected snowfall, and we almost got stuck in Cortina (only 7 cars made it out, lucky thing we had an early start time ... and had the snow ruts of a lumber truck to follow out of town).

I've gotten burned in July, too, by finding a pass not yet melted out.

[red67]

thanks chris
sounds like exciting trips at your end too.
since restoration my car (it's pretty immaculate) has only had one trip in rain so i'm really scared about that. eeek. maybe i have to take the bull by the horns, take the consequences and enjoy it if we get snowed in to a settlement - it's just a car after all. easy to say, hard to do! life's too short.
did you adjust the carb screws for thin air or was it all fine and dandy?

[cak]

This was in a modern car with EFI, but ancient weather protection technology - a Caterham Se7en. So the elevation change wasn't a problem.

We did the first day with the top down, but the rest of the trip required the top.

The Se7en is not really a car built for snow, I tell you.

You need to expect/plan for rain - there's no way around it in summer! But if you plan your trip for August, you "should" be free of snow...

[red67]

in a caterham/lotus seven sitting so close to the cold floor i'm guessing you got a cold bum! excuse my french.
thanks again - post some pics of that trip when you can - curious to see for inspiration

[cak]

Yeah, Steve hadn't quite figured out the heating, so one of my jobs as co-driver was to manage it. After a day or so, I got things adjusted so that our feet weren't freezing...

Photos are at http://www.dimebank.com/images/TargaLiege-2002/ - one of these days I'll go back and build a real webpage about the trip and the route. We started in Spa, went across southern Germany into Austria (through the Mittertoerl tunnel, because the Grossglockner pass was closed), then through the Tirol to Cortina. We were meant to go over Stelvio, but it was closed, too - the lower pass we took was bad enough, with a fair bit of black ice on the descent. Then on to Brescia (via Milano) and ultimately Florence.

It was all "specialist" cars, which roughly translated to very limited production and/or hand-built. We had a number of crazies who did the event without weather protection, but rather in full motorcycle suits...

[red67]

WOW! that looks fantastic! fabulous chris -
that's just what we want to do (but with a 6 pot in the back)!
looks like so much fun, it's really inspirational, really. (but who's the guy towing a caravan - he can't have been much competition)
some alpine porsche shots guys come on, there must be some out there...

[cak]

It was a great trip. I don't recommend doing it in four days

The guy towing the caravan was the support vehicle for the organizers and laggards/breakdowns. He was using a 2CV-based special to tow it (note the grill decoration). A lot of the trikes were using 2CV engines...