1997 · Route des Vosges, France
Route des Vosges
530km each way for a rally that the Gamine’s 18 horsepower were never quite going to win.
OK, first you drive from the Netherlands to France... 530km later and already crippled [the Gamine isn’t exactly spacious if you’re 1.90m tall...]
You start the next morning with the administrative and technical inspections... Here it turns out your car is far too small to fit all the required stickers! Normally the numbers go on the doors, but a 25cm door height really made the technical inspector laugh out loud [Stéphane, great guy]. With his help we cut a piece off and finally found some space on the rear wings of the Gamine.
With participants from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Holland, it was quite an international event. Next to Jaguars, Porsches, MGs, Triumphs, a Mercedes, Volvo, Renault, NSU, Panhard and a Ford, the Gamine was definitely the smallest car [by size and horsepower]. Gilles & Sophie also drove a Fiat 500, but Gilles had done quite some work on the Fiat 126 engine fitted into their car. It certainly made them go uphill a lot faster... The purpose of the Route des Vosges is to find your way within a set time [you have to average roughly 40km/h — no way the Gamine reaches that speed uphill with 18bhp!].
With the help of a roadbook you have to find your way through the nicest parts of the Vosges. Unfortunately the ‘time pressure’ doesn’t leave you much room to enjoy the scenery. According to Stéphane, our position after the first day was really quite good. On the next and final day we lost too much time — but not quite enough to land us in last place ;))
We did get an honourable 3rd place in the ‘most desirable car’ vote, but we figured a snobbish MG owner wasn’t going to vote for a Jaguar, and would rather vote for this cute little Gamine...
Sunday afternoon, 17:00, it was all over, but we still had to get back to Holland... Driving the motorway with a top speed of 95km/h and being overtaken by fast trucks the whole way is no fun at all! We reached the Belgian Ardennes at 21:30 and decided to stay the night. The next day we carried on but avoided the motorways. It took us ages to reach the Dutch border, but we enjoyed the Ardennes and a good beer in Hoegaarden!
The picture below shows that we did win a trophy [and not even a small one — it just about fit in the car...]. It was for ‘l’équipe le plus sympathique’!
