What It's Like Driving A Project Car 1000+ Miles In One Weekend

We gave ourselves just 10 days to organise the first international CT meet at the Nurburgring, and as you’ll see in our official CTMeet video (coming Wednesday), the hours of driving and waiting at the border were hours well spent.

In preparation for the longest trip I’ve ever done in my project car (aka Phil), I installed coilover suspension (video coming Friday), a roll over bar, side bars, and harnesses, just in case I ran out of luck on the ‘Ring.

The trip to the Nurburgring itself began at 12pm on Friday. I left my place with our freelance camera guy Jack, and a car full of camera gear, to make a dash for Folkestone. After two hours, we arrived, at which point we met up with the rest of the CT crew. Darren, Gabor, Lewis, and Edwin were riding in a new Land Rover Discovery that looked the nuts, but which was apparently very cramped inside. Meanwhile, John and James were already in Europe, smashing their way across Germany in John’s E46 M3.

After a two-hour delay, we were on the Channel Tunnel and on our way to Calais. As you’ll see from a road trip video soon, I got bored and did some mods to Phil with yellow electrical tape. Because race car.

On arrival at Calais, we drove past approximately 20 refugees who were heading back to their camp sites after a day of failing to get across the border. Despite their unbearable situation, they seemed in decent spirits and even gave me a thumbs up. Seeing the guys in the flesh really brought home what I’d seen so much in the news recently, but that largely goes unreported now…

A few miles down the road, the guys in the Disco, and Jack and I in the MX-5, stopped for fuel and Candy Up (the best thing to come out of France) to begin our 350-mile trip through France, Belgium and Germany.

The entire journey was cursed with heavy rain and terrible driving conditions, but the Discovery’s tail lights made life for me pretty easy; just follow the big red thing in front, and stay far behind enough to make sure the spray from the road wasn’t too unbearable.

At the two-hour mark, I was in completely new territory with Phil. This was the furthest I’d ever pushed him, and I was cruising at 80mph and 4100rpm without rest. The oil and water temperatures looked good and the roof was doing well to keep the water out. Things were looking good and my confidence in this plucky little car was hitting a new level.

With the day drawing quickly to a close, a fuel stop was needed to make sure we’d get to our Nurburgring destination with miles in the tank to spare. After a quick calculation by Jack, the MX-5 was returning around 31mpg, which isn’t bad considering the additional weight of the safety bars (approx 30kg), camera gear (approx 35kg), weather conditions, and the fact that we weren’t exactly hanging around on the motorway.

Speaking of the mods, they’ve done wonders to both the car’s dynamics and my confidence behind the wheel. The H&R coilover suspension has completely transformed the ride quality for the better. Bumps and potholes no longer mean that the interior clatters like an old bus, and speed bumps don’t cause the underside to kiss the tarmac; that’s the sign of a good set of dampers, and the fact that the ride height is a little bit higher than anticipated. Lower springs will get the rear down by an inch.

The newfound stiffness created by the roll over bar, side bars and harness bar all provided by Moss Europe have given Phil a new lease of life. It’s quicker to react to my steering inputs, feels more planted and has given me more confidence, especially when I’ve got a passenger next to me. The same sentiment applies to my mum, who was initially worried about the trip with the car more or less standard (no roll over bar etc).

After a solid 12 hours of travel time behind us, we were on the final stretch to our hotel about 20km away from the ‘Ring. The roads became twisty, and finally I was in my element. The noise of my Cobalt exhaust, the coilovers and chassis stiffness meant that I was able to carry speed through corners more efficiently than the 2+ tonne Disco ahead that rolled comically through every corner.

On arrival at the hotel, I was overcome with a sense of pride. The car that I had invested so much time and love into with a lot of my closest friends had screamed its way across four countries and 500 miles in one day. Hell, a few months ago, this car was so rusty that it had no right to be here today, but I couldn’t let that happen. That’s why it spent weeks getting fixed up.

Today, my project car is chilling at home after yet another faultless drive back from a successful lap of the Nurburgring. And as you can see from the image above, yes, I did cable tie a Porsche Cayman race car bumper to the boot rack for the long drive home.

Take a look at our Nurburgring adventures here.