High speed running in Germany

I've just been fiddling with my sat-nav after using it extensively on my recent trip through Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.

I noticed that it has recorded a maximum speed for the trip of 129mph, which I reached (legally and safely) in a brief burst on a completely clear stretch of the A5 between Basel and Frankfurt. The Alfa 159 (2.2 litre four cylinder petrol version) I was driving at the time felt like it had more to give, but I would have required a much longer piece of empty road to max it safely.

But don't go thinking that the Autobahns are a high-speed paradise. Long stretches of the A5 have a 120 km/h limit, have only two lanes in each direction, or are clogged with traffic - that means average journey times probably aren't much better than they would be in the UK.

What's outside today 21 - German Hertz hire car Alfa 159 SW

Outside the Holiday Inn Padova that is. En route to a pal's wedding further south at the weekend. The booking was for a Mercedes C Class 'or similar' and 'or similar' turned out to be the Alfa Romeo 159 SW - no complaints about that all.


In fact, if they'd given me a Merc I'd have been stuck as the German end of Hertz doesn't allow its hire cars from German prestige brands to be taken to Italy or eastern Europe (presumably because there's too high a risk that they will be nicked), a fact that I didn't discover until I started reading the boring hire documentation on a coffee stop in Italy because I didn't have a newspaper or an Internet connection to hand. Alfas are OK though.


I hadn't driven the 159 before but I was impressed by its performance on a long demanding day of driving across the Alps yesterday - but more of that later.

What's outside today 3 - the Ford Focus Coupé-Cabriolet

This is the recently introduced convertible version of the Focus - the Coupé-Cabriolet (CC) designation signifies that it is one of those metal roof convertibles that are so popular these days. Interesting to see that although the two cars couldn't be more different in appearance, the Focus CC carries a Pininfarina badge on its flanks, just like last week's Verdict test car, the Alfa Spider.

Only two other thoughts at the moment.

1) the rather bright orangey beige leather seats are going to take a bit of getting used to.

2) it's not an ST - once you've had a chance to try one of those marvellous machines, other versions of the Focus, good as they are, tend to end up feeling just a little bit ordinary.

But we shall see.

Off to Yorkshire with this one.

Road tips 2 - The Birkenhead (Queensway) Tunnel

Opened in 1934, the Birkenhead Tunnel was designed by Sir Basil Mott, although the structures that you can see on the surface, including the entrances to the tunnel, are the work of Herbert James Rowse. Like so many older buildings in Liverpool, their imposing style and fine detailing recall the city's prosperous past.

The main tunnel changes direction several times over its length of more than two miles, and four lanes of traffic, two in each direction, run in a large single bore; Mott's cavernous masterpiece certainly isn't the place to go if you want to hear the sound of your engine bouncing off the walls, as I discovered when I drove the Alfa Spider through it with the roof down the other day.

So what's the tip? Not that the Queensway Tunnel is a good way of getting between the two sides of the Mersey - that would be a bit too obvious! No, the tip is just to go and marvel at this wonder of early twentieth century civil engineering; there is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the UK.

261 horsepower

That's 260 under the bonnet of the Alfa Spider and one standing in the field behind.

If you get the chance to drive a lot of fancy cars, you soon get used to people coming up to take a closer look or ask some questions. I particularly remember being tailed along the M6 and followed into Corley service station by some car nuts who wanted to find out all about the then newly introduced Mercedes CLS, and the toll collector at the Forth Road Bridge who instantly recognised the Audi RS4 I was driving and wanted to know all about it. But this is the first time I can remember a horse rushing over to inspect one of the Verdict's test cars.

What's outside today 2 - the Alfa Spider (PS)

Forgot the most important shot...

What's outside today 2 - the Alfa Spider

This is Alfa's new Spider, which just turned up this morning - and a beautiful machine it is too, although these roof-up shots under an overcast East Anglian sky don't show it off to its best advantage.

This week it is the turn of some of the Indy's readers in the north-west to take part in the Verdict - so that's where the Spider will be heading this evening.