In October 2002, Autocar's motoring editor Steve Sutcliffe, road test editor Chris Harris and photographer Tom Salt set out on a journey that they called 'The Road Trip'.
But this was no ordinary road trip. Published in January 2003, this was the story of a bona-fide supercar, the Lamborghini Murcielago, and the hottest of hot hatches, the Ford Focus RS.
Could a 20-grand hot hatch really live with a £163,000 supercar over 5000 miles of the finest driving roads in Europe?
In the quest to find out, we topped 200mph on an autobahn, recorded a sub-eight minute lap of the Nurburgring and visited Spain, France, Germany and Italy in one long and unforgettable week.
A total of 9489 combined miles and 682 gallons of super unleaded later, we reached our conclusion. And no, it isn't the one you probably expect.
THE ROAD TRIP, by Steve Sutcliffe and Chris Harris
Contents:
Sutcliffe's story: the drive to Nice, problems on the autoroute, storming the Route Napoleon, rain in Spain, maximum attack on the autobahn.
Harris' story: collecting the Lambo, smoked by the Focus, deafened by the Murcielago, Sutcliffe goes feral, 200mph from the passenger seat, homeward bound in the Lambo.
SUTCLIFFE: DAY 1 STEVE PICKS UP THE FOCUS RS AND DRIVES TO NICE
At half 11 on a cold October morning a glistening new Focus RS arrived outside the Autocar office. It looked perfect. Compact, tough, preened and ready to take on the world.
For some reason I immediately wrote the following in my notebook: "No matter what we may have proved by the end of this story, right here this car looks, and is, the perfect hot hatch."
I also wrote the number 9355 down. It was my wild guess at what the odometer might read in one week's time, having moved on somewhat from the 4288 figure showing.
The journey to Nice where I was due to rendezvous with Chris Harris, snapper Tom Salt, and a Lamborghini Murcielago, was largely uneventful.
That night I stopped at Reims, about 180 miles south of Calais, and got some shut-eye in a cheap hotel. It was a pretty uneventful slog south...
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SUTCLIFFE: DAY 2 REIMS TO NICE
… until an hour into my journey on day two and the Ford's engine started misfiring. Badly.
Every time I put my foot down there was a big cough and a splutter from beneath the bonnet and the throttle would die. But if I backed off and just tickled the accelerator I could - just about maintain momentum. Experimenting revealed that I could cruise between 103-106mph on the level before the splutter. But hills were a killer: on a gradient I couldn't coax more than 85mph out of the RS.
So I called Paul Wilson, who prepares and services all of Henry's press cars. And he asked: "Is it cold, Steve, the weather I mean?" Now I know we Brits discuss the climate wherever possible but this, I thought, wasn't a good time.
"I'm in trouble," I said, "and so is one of your motors. The magazine has spent hundreds on flights, the snapper is booked for a week, I'm in the middle of nowhere with a dying Focus RS - and you just want to talk about the weather?"
"The engine might be over-boosting if the ambient temperature is really cold," said Paul. And so 300 miles into our 10,000-mile marathon we had a crisis.
After plenty of mobile conversations with my new best mate, Paul, we decided I should press on towards Nice. Ford would send a second Focus RS to meet us that night, just to play safe.
"I bet it clears itself when you get further south and the temperature starts to rise," said Paul. He was right. An hour later I was cruising at 120mph on a deserted autoroute, one eye on the side of the road for the radar meanies, memories of my early morning panic a distant blip. By the time I reached Nice a lot later, I'd forgotten all about our little problem.
In fact, I was more convinced than ever of the Ford's enormous range of abilities by the time Harris, Salt and the Lambo hove into view. On the way there the RS had proved faster, more refined, quieter and calmer than I was expecting. I had enjoyed listening to six CDs on the trot, and even the high-mounted driver's seat hadn't bugged me they way I thought it might.
The only black mark was the fuel consumption. Okay, I'd been doing a steady 120mph but to get here I'd had six fills of around 50 litres each. Over 900 miles. Which meant 14mpg. Oh dear.
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SUTCLIFFE: DAY 3 MONACO TO SPAIN VIA THE ROUTE NAPOLEON
Having swapped into the second Focus and had a dubious meal in an expensive hotel in Nice we headed for Monaco early next morning. Bad move.
The only thing more awful than the weather was the traffic. Watching Harris squeeze the Murcielago through the narrow streets above Monte Carlo and make a series of noisy three point turns when, inevitably, we got lost, I've never been so glad not to be driving a Lamborghini.
But that feeling faded PDQ when we reached our next destination: the N85, the Route Napoleon, possibly the finest stretch of single carriageway tarmac you'll find anywhere on this planet. It starts in Cannes and eventually deposits you right in the middle of Grenoble, 200 miles inland.
As you leave Grasse the N85 opens out and climbs slowly over the next 10 miles until eventually it plateaus and you can see it meander over the horizon like a huge long line of grey string. Perfect Murcielago territory.
For a while I did my best to follow the Lamborghini, mesmerised by its vast rear tyres interacting so smoothly with the tarmac, happy to listen to the noises of that big V 12 ricochet off the cliff faces and obliterate the characterless thrumming of the Ford's 2.0-litre turbocharged four.
The RS had so much grip and raw composure over this road, I knew I could try harder than Harris in the Lambo, which meant I could stay with him to begin with. But as his confidence in the big car grew and as the straights got longer and wider, he was soon gone in an eruption of horsepower.
It was fantastic to watch, never more so than on the exit of one particular corner that was damp on the exit because the sun hadn't yet got to the surface. I could see the tail start to go and hear the engine revs rise as the rear tyres began to smoke up. Then I realised he wasn't about to go off the road in a dramatic and expensive accident: he was doing it deliberately, provoking the Murcielago into one of the most outrageous power slides I've ever seen on the public highway.
Imagine doing that in a Diablo: you'd be into the rock face and on the phone to the Samaritans before you could say, "Sorry, a rabbit jumped out in front of me." With the Murcielago, though, the balance is there if you're skilled enough to exploit it.
But the RS got its own back over the narrower, twistier roads we drove over later to get back to the autoroute. Then, the Ford's laser-crisp turn in, its powerful brakes and smaller girth meant it could at least stay with the Lambo, and in reality probably leave it, had I been able to get past.
When we stopped and swapped at the end of our favourite road, it was the Lambo's brakes that were puffing clouds of smoke under the strain: the Ford just sat there, ticking over quietly as if it had been driven to the supermarket.
For the journey along the bottom of France and across to northern Spain I at last got to settle into the big orange car I'd been watching all day. You don't so much climb aboard as insert yourself into a Murcielago, and if the process takes a little longer than it does in the Ford, which you simply leap into and go, then so be it: all the more time to think about, savour and anticipate the experience you're about to have.
The driving position may be much better than a Diablo's, but after the RS the Murcielago feels - at first - hopelessly compromised. The Ford is utterly conventional in layout: it could be any which car inside. Whereas the Murcielago could only be a Lamborghini - all knees up, arms out, feet cranked in towards the centre of the car to find the pedals.
The Murcielago's seat also feels hard and, basically, pretty uncomfortable after the Ford's. And yet, as the first autoroute mile towards our overnight destination of San Sebastian became the second, and then the 10th, and then the 20th, I started to make myself fit the Murcielago. Or to be more precise, I began to make it fit me.
To prevent ankle meltdown I hooked my left foot under and behind the clutch pedal, releasing as much toe-wiggling room as possible - occasionally this could be tempered by short bursts of placing my left foot on the accelerator and wiggling my right ankle to make sure all five pinkies were still present and correct.
The backrest I set to around 78 degrees, enabling right forearm to rest on right knee so I could steer with a nonchalant flick of the wrist whenever a more serious curve was encountered. I also tried resting my head on the back of the seat for a while to prevent neck disintegration but, in the end, I gave up. The vibrations set up a) by the seat flexing and h) by the faint pitter-patter of the suspension, were together just irritating enough to make me have to lift my head away from the seatback. If I didn't do this I ended up feeling, if not actually looking, like the nodding dog. Even so, by the time we reached San Sebastian some five hours, 550 miles and 261 litres of super unleaded later, I was still feeling surprisingly chipper.
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SUTCLIFFE: DAY 4 SPAIN, RAIN AND A LITTLE OVERNIGHT PAIN
Why Spain, you might be wondering. One reason: to drive both cars flat chat over one of the quietest and best dual carriageways in the world, the autovia 68 that runs south from Bilbao to Burgos and, eventually, to Madrid.
It's the sort of road that makes your eyes weep and your head wonder exactly what it is they put in the water in the Basque region: it's a motorway, yes, but not as we know it. It's so twisty and mountainous you'd need a Group C Le Mans car to do more than 130mph at any stage along the first 100 miles. And to begin with the Focus, not the Lamborghini, was king.
Because, for the first 60 miles it was chucking it down - and in the rain there isn't a thing the Lambo's horsepower or all wheel-drive hardware can do to match the Ford's knee-trembling chassis composure. At one point I pulled out a good mile advantage over Harris in the Murcielago, which he'd been pedalling as fast as possible for the conditions.
When we swapped cars I soon realised why. In the rain, around a series of 100-110mph downhill sweepers, the Lamborghini is not a nice car to drive: it is the closest thing I can think of, in fact, to a nervous breakdown on four wheels.
You drive it quickly in such conditions with your heart in your mouth, your bum cheeks permanently clenched and both hands welded to the wheel. And your eyes never blink. Concentration is something of a must if an appointment with a slab of wet, grey Armco is to be avoided.
So in the end I gave up. I simply could not stay with Harris, who just charged off into the distance through the spray. After one oh-no-please-not-here-not-now moment, I cut my losses and hoped I'd see them in the queue at the next toll.
The Lambo's frightening combination of turn-in understeer, followed by a sharp swing into neutrality mid-comer and then oversteer if you so much as think about backing away from the throttle, well, it defeated me in the end.
In the dry it would no doubt have been very different. I'm certain the Lambo's sheer level of grip would have destroyed the RS and allowed me to make much greater use of the right-hand pedal. But in the rain, no thanks.
Interest in a bright orange Murcielago was surprisingly sparse at the Spanish/French border later that day.
At 10am we'd been way down in the middle of Spain, not far from Madrid. Our destination that night was Paris: next day we were headed to Bottrop in Germany, and then eventually to the Nurburgring. Another long and thankless slog north on the autoroutes in other words. And I got the short straw: the Lamborghini.
After a while I got bored and began to count the number of inexplicably silly faults inside the Murcielago - like the ashtray that constantly flicks open because the spring that holds it shut isn't strong enough (one); the stereo that's useless at anything above 80mph (two); the left-foot rest that doesn't actually have enough room to accommodate your left foot (three, and easily my favourite, so make that four as well); absolutely nowhere to put a mobile phone (five) except in the doorbins which have no bottom edge to them, meaning your mobile falls out and smashes on the floor first time you open the door (six); no clock (seven).
The other annoying flaw with the Murcielago as a long-distance tool is the engine vibration that happens between 4300-5100rpm. In the UK, unless you're mad, it's not an issue because the speed range we're talking about is 120-135mph. But on a deserted motorway in the middle of France at 10pm it's the exact speedband you want to settle in. So the only solution is to sit above or below these parameters.
A nice comfy 138mph it was then. By the time we reached Paris it was that awkward time when you don't know whether to stop and find a hotel, or carry on and get another 100 miles nearer to where you want to be the next day.
We went for the latter option - and boy were we wrong. After the fourth hotel north of Paris turned out to be full, my sense of dread heightened and my sense of humour evaporated, along with any chance we had of getting somewhere to kip that night. By then it was one in the morning: we'd been on the road since 6am, done way over 1000 miles, most of which I'd spent in the wonderful but also increasingly uncomfortable Murcielago. And to cap it all we'd got separated from each other and my wallet was in the Focus. I began to contemplate the grim prospect of spending a night in a Lamborghini.
Then my mobile rang. It was the others. Harris reckoned he knew a hotel in Liege that had got him out of the doo-doos once before at three in the morning on his way to the Nurburgring. It was only another 140km away. They would see me there.
The only thing I remember about the journey was having to stop three times to walk around the car to stay awake. If I'd had a couple of matchsticks handy I'd have shoved them in my eyes to keep them open. To this day I think it's probably the most dangerous thing I've ever done in a Lamborghini.
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SUTCLIFFE: DAY 5 MAXIMUM ATTACK ON A31
Or maybe not. Next morning on the derestricted A31 autobahn that runs north from Bottrop to Ochtrup we logged the Murcielago at over 200mph - and at one point during the run there was a now-or-never-moment where I probably made an even more stupid decision than I had the night before.
We had already tried to max the car on three previous runs, and each time the traffic had thwarted us. The brakes were starting to feel decidedly second best by then, too, following three big stops from close to 200mph. The A31, you see, is only a dual-carriageway.
And usually it's not this busy. So we waited. And waited. And eventually, just before lunch, the traffic began to fade.
We had to be at the Nurburgring later that afternoon so it was make or break time as far the story was concerned. Returning a Murcielago to Lamborghini after a week having not done a genuine 200mph in it just didn't seem like the right thing to do. So for one final try we set off from our chosen layby, Harris in the passenger seat with the timing gear, me at the wheel, both of us sweating a little through fear and frustration.
Big V12 thunder as I went up through the gears, and at 185mph it was beginning to look good: the horizon was still clear and the Murcielago had reached that point where it no longer piles on the acceleration but instead merely claws its way up the speed range. One nine five, one nine seven, fine: the car still felt amazingly stable at this speed, a truly impressive display of chassis and aerodynamic composure. In a Pagani you need two lanes at this sort of lick.
It wasn't until we crested the brow and saw the three trucks lumbering along or the inside lane that the sheer outrageousness of what we were doing struck home. According to the speedometer we were now travelling at 335km/h - well over 200mph - and yet neither of us knew for sure whether the trucks would wander or not, like the other cars had on our three failed attempts to establish a "that's it; that's all she'll do" maximum.
So I took the very selfish decision to keep my foot planted and, I'm glad to say, just at that moment there was a murmur of approval from Harris. And then, thank God, we were past the trucks and away onto a clear stretch of road where eventually the Lambo reached a digitally confirmed 206.2mph.
The drive to the Nurburgring seemed to take a long, long time after that. And the drive home in the Focus took even longer. Yet somehow I was glad to be back in the Ford, going home. Returning to a more normal, more comfortable, less exhausting pace of life.
What we did in those two cars over those roads was a once in a lifetime experience which I shall never forget. Least of all what we did in the Lamborghini on that road, passing those trucks at such at unbelievable speed.
But I couldn’t and wouldn’t have turned around and done it all again. I was shattered – and so were my colleagues. And so, it must be said, was the Lamborghini.
For a car like the RS to put 5000 miles under it tyres in one week is, in the end, small beer. A regular deal. But for a Lamborghini, even one that has been lovingly assembled under the guidance of Audi, it’s a mammoth task – as much as a year’s motoring crammed into six days.
And to be honest the car was just beginning to crumble beneath the strain. The brakes were gonners by the time we handed it back and the driver’s side window had packed up. As an owner you’d be looking at several thousand pounds worth of expensive major service to make it ship-shape again. And the Focus, well it might have needed a £75 oil change another 5000 miles down the line. Not bad considering its odo read 9387 miles by the time it went back to Ford.
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And now, Chris Harris tells his side of the story...
HARRIS: DAY 1 COLLECT LAMBO AND DRIVE TO NICE
When weekends away from work are merely tolerated and weekdays gleefully anticipated you've either married the wrong woman or love your job. The latter reason explained my dysfunctional twitching during the two days before I nudged the heated seat button in our long-term Lexus at 3.30 one morning not long ago and headed for Stansted airport. The waiting had been agony.
To me, this was always going to be The Trip. The script was sensational; the cast beyond compare. The next week could only ever be a personal benchmark. And now we were underway. Snapper Tommy Salt and I were aboard the Ryanair redeye to Brescia, Italy, with a colossal bag of film and an itinerary bequeathed by the Gods; and despite the skipper's best efforts to bury the Airbus undercarriage in the runway, we landed on schedule.
After an espresso, we met European editor Peter Robinson, who arrived unusually late in his classic beard-and-loud-sweater combo and a sizzling orange Murcielago.
He leapt out, almost gagging on his own hyperbole about the new Lambo, then composed himself, ran me through the deal, before surrendering to another crescendo of infectious Robbo enthusiasm: "It's yours for the week mate. God, it's soooooo good". The man is a legend, and he wasn't wrong.
It was also brand new, run-in to 1000km and that very morning was treated to a fresh slug of oil. It was effectively going to be our home for the next week. Time's arrow was pointing towards Nice, so we kept the farewell brief, loaded the boot in the nose (surprisingly accommodating) and filled the cabin (unsurprisingly cramped) and plotted a course to France. Sutcliffe had already phoned to tell me that his Focus's turbo had contracted a rare allergy to French air. Like I said, this was always going to be The Trip.
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HARRIS: DAY 2 MONACO AND THE N85
In Monaco I tried, and failed, not to look a tit pulling three-pointers in the Lambo. The weather was desperate, while Monaco, as ever, was the arm-pit of Europe, so we decided against spending anything more than an hour getting lost in its nightmare one-way system. No wonder they have to make the tax benefits so appealing: no one would think of living there otherwise.
In convoy with the Focus my mind was on other things anyway. We were heading for what I consider to be the finest road on earth, the never-endingly brilliant N85, or Route Napoleon.
Knowing what lay ahead made trudging out of Grasse almost unbearable, but with altitude came space and the chance to string some turns together. Very fast car the Murcielago: it bounded up to braking areas with so much energy you had to be on the top of your game, but the rewards repaid your concentration. For 20 miles I stropped on at pace, only to realise that the bloody Ford was refusing to disappear from my rear-view mirror. So I pushed harder, only to be punished with the same result: a mirror full of Focus. Could have sworn the thing was grinning, too, goading me to give it the slip it if I thought that was actually possible.
And eventually I did, but only after I'd done everything I could in one of the world's fastest cars. It set up the question that most needed answering: is the Focus near-as-dammit-to-Lambo rapid in 'The Real World', or was Sutcliffe just a bit clever on these roads? I suspected the answer was a little of both, which was confirmed when we hung a left towards Draguignan. I followed him, and his brake lights flickered before, during and on the exit of every single bend. *** was left-foot braking.
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HARRIS: DAY 3 FOCUS TO SAN SEBASTIAN
'Transit van' was all I could think when we swapped and headed for the autoroute and a sizeable trek to San Sebastian right across France's underbelly. I was sitting so high, the gearlever was so low and the steering, well, just like a van's really.
It wasn't anything to worry about, but the switch from supercar to regular wheels amazed me. They were just so different. Three hundred clicks later, though, the seat felt just perfect, lightly squeezing my ample booty but not cutting circulation as so many bucket-type seats do on long trips. Using two days in the Lambo as a reference no doubt left my comfort-judgement powers shot to bits but, either way, both the boy Salt and I could yarn at an indicated 110mph, and the hi-fi kicked out an especially fine set of sounds. But the roads played into the RS's hands, they were lino-smooth and had few expansion joints.
Then, not for the last time, we lost Sutters. Poor chap got impatient with a peage queue and ended up heading for Bordeaux. We trucked on towards San Sebastian at a severely abated rate and wondered, as everyone surely does, just how long it takes for something to catch up, despite our pathetic 60mph cruise. Our re-connection will stay with me for a long time. I spotted the Lambo's gas discharge lamps in the distance and couldn't quite believe how quickly they were growing. He was gonna buzz us. I wanted to hear it better, so I wound the Ford's window down and poked a lug-hole out. I don't hear so good anymore: my ear drum was permanently damaged by a Murcielago. How cool is that?
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HARRIS: DAY 4 FOCUS REIGNS IN THE RAIN
Two hours before sun-up, nosing around San Sebastian in a deluge of Amazonian proportions didn't show the Lambo in its best light. Frankly, I was terrified of the thing getting biffed.
You never make a sharp exit from an espresso break in the supercar, either. Someone always wants to peer into the cabin, look at the engine or just stand over the nose and point. Odd thing is, I never tire of such attention. Let's just put it down to spreading the word, to letting something as menial as a car brighten a few lives. And the Murcielago does just that: it is the most extreme representation of the supercar and everyone loves it.
This road was getting into my head. For half an hour we climbed out of the border country until finally it flattened out and the landscape suddenly shifted from bland arable to a prairie rockscape you've only ever seen in a western before. With the change, the traffic thinned, the rain stopped and we swapped again. Steve's urge to exercise the Lambo's instrument needles was catching. I spotted the changes by the exhaust note: the lot in third, through fourth and a sizeable dose of fifth before holding the speed in sixth was enough to leave the Focus hundreds of car-lengths behind in an instant.
What a piece of road. Two lanes wide, lovingly surfaced, free from clumsy alterations and delicately cambered to help you sustain speed though its delicious sweepers. It's the finest stretch of dual carriageway in the world and every car nut should get down here and remind themselves how much fun multi-lane work can be.
In the dry it needs massive power, though. Even a hot hatch that will nudge 150mph isn't man enough for the job. I like to think that this is the road every supercar designer pictures in their head when they pen a 200mph silhouette. Just give me a DVD of the two cars hammering along it, underscored by a soundtrack cut directly from the Murcielago's induction nostril: all on a permanent loop. Heaven.
It wasn't yet 2pm and we'd already nailed 350miles. Next stop, Paris.
Tommy's place was in the Focus, regardless of driver. He called the Lambo evil, couldn't wriggle into a comfortable position and found the whole experience a mite threatening. So he had a permanent lair in the RS, film spilling out of every bin, pocket and cubby, and he scrambled around the cabin shooting various Lambo angles, emitting the odd noise in appreciation of the dusk light pinging off its soiled bodywork. In fact, make that filthy bodywork. Both cars looked well-used by then, but with every extra micron of overall scum, the Lambo was looking increasingly magnificent.
Fatigue was beginning to set in as we rounded the Periferique and, excusing the pun, I'd had my fill of the RS's pathetic range at our 110mph-plus cruising speed. On the thrash north of Bordeaux it had been little more economical than the big orange fella: 14mpg to the Lambo's 10mpg - and that was just out of order. Still, another brim just completed, we headed north of Paris to Compiegne, and the promise of a supple, warm bed.
Fat chance. No room at any inn. Now Steve and I are in possession of a pair of the more fractious tempers around. So then we got angry, vented our respective spleens with a childish display of wheel-spinnage in some tiny village and headed back to the autoroute, with Salt silent next to me wondering why he'd agreed to spend a week with two idiots equipped with dangerously fast cars and a lot of growing up to do.
Chronic tiredness meant I didn't fully recall what happened next. I know it was gone midnight when we lost Steve, that it was past one when Tom tried to phone him for the eighth time, connected, listened and then put the mobile down with a significance only a snapper can muster. "It's bad," he said. "Stevie's gone feral; he's losing it man."
Crikey.
Quick decision was needed. Aim for Liege, it was in the right direction for tomorrow's autobahn frolics and I knew of a gaff that had sorted me a couple of times in similar situations. Tommy phoned Steve and told him the plan: the return grunt seemed to be in the affirmative, so we assumed he'd understood and pinned our ears back. We arrived, found a room, had a kebab delivered, ate, made friends again and, at long last, slept.
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HARRIS: DAY 5 FUN AUF DER AUTOBAHN
The foulest urban myth of the past 30 years is undoubtedly the commonly, and wrongly, held belief that Germany is the place to drive fast. It most certainly isn't. After the immaculate, congestion-free roads of southern Europe, the grim industrial north of Germany came as a rude shock. We rose early and entered the Fatherland at Aachen, drifting with three solid lanes of 70mph traffic towards the best-kept secret in Germany: the A31.
We call it the Bottrop road - on account of it ending in Bottrop - but its real significance lies in its beginnings. This is a motorway that quite literally starts out of nothing: two lanes grow out of a field and then just plough south with no speed limit whatsoever. It's so well suited to big speeds that Brabus tests its loony-saloons here: enough said.
You have to trust the people you work with in this job: too much time is spent in situations that could end in tears if you don't. And I trust Sutcliffe. I trust him sideways at over 100mph in the wet at Castle Combe and flat-chat on any road. But I've never sat next to anyone at 200mph before, and now having done so, can honestly say that I have no intention of repeating the experience.
It wasn't the speed: I'd already completed three photo runs myself at an indicated 330km/h (a true 198mph) and been stunned by the Lambo's aerodynamic stability. It was, and it took time to realise this, the vibrations that made me giddy. At over 190mph the Murcielago's body structure succumbs to the insane frictional war that's being played out by its wheels, drivetrain and bodyshell: the whole thing just begins to oscillate. Then at a real 200mph the frequency changes and the whole car throbs its way to 206mph. And when you're driving the difference is, you have a wheel to stop yourself shaking.
Slow-moving lorries don't worry me. Sutters made a decision to pass them, and that’s what counts, because the key to safe, fast driving is being ferociously decisive. And he made the correct call. But deep down I knew we’d just honestly maxed one of the fastest cars in the world on a public road. It felt sublime.
No time for reflection, though: we I needed to get to the 'Ring before 4pm. Oh, and the Focus did 146mph - not that you actually care.
Familiarity never quells the trepidation you feel as the barrier swings up and another lap of the Nordschleife begins. It is the defeinitive test of a car and driver: a circuit that tells us that, up to a point, agility is more vital than horsepower.
In the end, though, there was not a lot the RS could do to compete with the Lambo's sheer wallop. Whatever the Focus made up under brakes or in supreme body control, the Lambo was easily the faster and more thrilling drive. The final times? Lambo 7min 43.2sec, Focus 8min 34.1sec. The numbers really do say it all in this instance.
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HARRIS: DAY 6 LAMBO GOES HOME
Lambo and Tommy were reunited through necessity rather than choice, because we were returning the once new and now thoroughly used Murcielago to Italy. We caught a steak at the Pisten Clausen bar near the 'Ring after our laps, and headed for Munich and the best night's sleep all week.
The pressure was off now. Steve would be half-way home already: we simply needed to carve a course through the Alps and saunter south-west towards Brescia to reunite Robbo with the Lamborghini.
And wouldn't you just know it, as we marvelled at the Brenna Pass and kept the speed below 100mph, a BMW 330i decided it wanted a piece of Italian flesh and so began another high-speed convoy. He was two-up, courteous and fun, and before we knew it, the Brescia exit loomed large on the right-hand side. Game over. Mixed emotions for me: sad to end the dream trip, ecstatic for Lamborghini that its car managed something of this magnitude while subliminally aware that I'd never do anything like it again.
Yet I missed the Ford, too, the car I'd taken to calling my Focus RS. You see I'm a sucker for this kind of tackle, always have been, always will be. I love the size/performance ratio: the anywhere, anytime, anyhow-ness of the package. It makes me feel special when I know I'm not, and that's a prodigious achievement for something with a sticker-price less than one-eighth of what you'll need to buy the lower-slung half of this pairing.
Robbo completed the circle, naturally. We dropped the car at his home in Brescia and he left for Sant' Agata soon afterwards. This time he said nothing, aware that I was genuinely sad to be saying goodbye to the car, but his smile said it all. What a car, what a trip.
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