Hi all, just thought I’d let you guys know what an amazing reaction I got to my Mangusta on the Targa Florio Classic in Sicily which I did just over 2 weeks ago
It takes place annually over 3 days, strictly speaking the competition element is a regularity rally where you have to travel small distances in very precise times, ( REAL slow) with penalties for every 1/1000 second over / under
Lowest number of points wins. We didn’t!! We got lots of points…..
This keeps the organisers on right side of the law which doesn’t allow any road racing.
Only everyone ignores it and the locals certainly want you to ignore it and drive as fast as you can!
Especially when you drive a Mangusta, in red, one which is a noisy converted race car!!
I even managed to say “no it’s not a Ferrari or Maserati and yes, its a pretty rare car” in Italian just like a local by the end of the event
753 kms in 3 days is probably more than my car has done in the past 10 years but it survived.
wasn’t without issues though….
Firstly whatever you think it’s like driving in an Italian City at 5pm on Friday you can multiply it by 10 in Palermo, Sicily
They’re nuts!! At times we had a police motorcycle escort but the locals just ignored him so we sat along with everyone trying to chat in a mixture of English and Italian. We became fluent in hand gestures, smiling and shoulder shrugging.
But mad in a good way, I have to say the reaction was always really really friendly.
Especially when they told us we were losing water in the drive to centre of town - turned out the car had an inch of water in bottom from heavy rain on way down and when I put the fan override it blew a relay, must have shorted out, thankfully a relatively easy fix.
At times the traffic was biblical, even out of town, as a race car we had poly/perspex side windows which only dropped 2/3 inches so I’d installed a Vintage Air A/C system (will post about that separately) as thought it would be better than factory (it was certainly very cool) although it then proved to use so much power that with the electric fans, the a/c fans, the blower fans and a under driven pulley system (should have seen that one!) we eventually managed to drain the battery. It’s amazing how quickly 6 young Sicilians can push a car! The roar when it fired into life and splattered them with Hydrocarbons said they enjoyed it.
If you speak Italian, and your (very) quick at translating, the local TV crew had a great time with the Mangusta at the finish, hopefully the link works.
https://www.facebook.com/motor...os/1694271677367835/
I’ve now done a couple of events in Italy and while the cars, scenery and food and wine are amazing, it’s the people who really make these events. They just wouldn’t be the same without their passion and love
The event isn’t as high profile as the Mille Miglia but attracted crews from W Coast US, Australia, Europe and Argentina.
A great event, if you ever get chance to compete or watch I’d thoroughly recommend it
It’s an real adventure!!
Especially in a Goose.
