As any self respecting Mini fan will know, "The Italian Job" was a film made in 1969 staring Michael Caine and Noel Coward. The story was based around a gang of crooks pulling off a bullion heist through the streets of Turin using 3 Minis as getaway cars.

The problems included...

• Broken exhaust bracket - only a few months old but decided to snap as we drove off the ferry.
• Ignition problems - spare dizzy, coil, plugs and leads failed to sort the problem so it was backfire and sheets of flame all the way.
• Broken wheel arches - a curb jumped out at us when we took a wrong turn.....honest! Nothing a roll of tank tape can't fix.
• Wheel bearing - 2nd day of the navigational rally saw one of the front wheel bearings poop itself after 3 miles of driving. Good excuse to sleep off a nasty hangover from the night before (too much free wine).
• More ignition problems, dodgy condenser, on my birthday and while everyone else is whizzing around the Nurburgring. Boo Hooo!!
  

After the best part of 10 months fundraising the big day finally came. 100 Minis lined up on Brighton's Madeira Drive ready for the start. We took our place in the line up next to 3 lads, Ant, Jim and Paul who were in a bright turquoise green car.

We got chatting, deciding to pair up on the journey to Trento in Italy. Naturally we had to find an name for their car,"The Tic Tac" seemed the obvious choice. The Tic Tac was the guys forth car.....their first was stolen and burnt out, the second withdrawn due to terminal rust and the third was Paul's 1420cc car which blew it's engine on the way to Brighton. A frantic call to a good friend netted them the Tic Tac for the event.

At 9pm we set off in convoy to catch the ferry at Newhaven. The roadside was lined with people waving for the entire journey. There were literally thousands of people. We were all tooting and waving, what an awesome send off.

The ferry landed in Calais just after midnight. By this time we had met a few other teams who had decided to join us on our journey. Everyone was keen to get some mileage under their belts so we traveled through the first night. The journey was eventful for quite a few teams..... "The Tic Tac" ate a hub and had to be abandoned with the crew replacing him with a hired Renault Saffran. About 2 hours after leaving the ferry Seymour had started to suffer from an intermittent misfire which steadily got worse as we progressed. We stripped all the ignition parts from Tic Tac which had to be left in a French garage and got him running again. This was short lived however as the problem came back the following day. We decided to limp on and let the others go ahead. Jim, Ant and Paul in their hire car stayed with us.

We drove all day and into the following evening. By this time we were in Switzerland. As we made progress towards the mountains it started to sleet. This gradually turned to heavy snow. It was madness! We were on a motorway, there was at least 3" of snow on the ground and all the other cars were still blasting along at 70+ MPH. We then got split up from the lads in the Saffran which made things a whole lot more stressful. It looked like we were on our own. I was also having serious doubts that we would make it much further.

By about 10pm we had gone about as far as the weather would allow us. The snow was just too thick. We came upon a small quaint looking town, parked up and went looking for somewhere to stay for the night. I couldn't believe my luck when I rounded the corner to see another jobbers mini parked up. It turned out we were in Kloisters, the winter holiday hideout for the UK royals.

The following morning we set off again with our new traveling buddies. We traveled across the Swiss Alps, down through St Moritz and finally by early afternoon we arrived in Trento. What a journey! It was great to be back with the pack.

The welcome in Trento was outstanding. We were taken on a tour of the town with a police escort, this lead us to the medieval town square had been set up for us with a huge marquee which we all parked up at. That night there was a huge party held in one of the beautiful old buildings. Being in the heart of the wine region we were generously plied with as much wine as we could handle....which for many was too much judging by some of the sorry faces that turned up the following morning for day one of the navigational rally.

The four days in Trento were fantastic and we made some great friends and were treated very well by the locals. Over the following 4 days we made our way back in a 100 mini convoy through Austria, Germany and France.

The highlight for me was a night at the Nurburgring race track. Our room at the Dorint hotel looked out on to the start finish line. It was my birthday the following day so we made the most of it and had a huge night in the hotel bar. The next day we were going for a blast around the track.

Sadly it wasn't to be.....Seymour was once again up to his tricks and we watched from the hotel as the rest of the teams lined up for a few laps of the track. Boo hoo!! The fault was found to be a bad condenser which we had to get a ride to the next big town to replace. By the time I got back to the track everyone had left as we had to get the Ferry at 1am the following morning.

Seymour was fixed up and off we set again. By this time it was early afternoon and we had some serious distance to cover if we were going to make the ferry. I made my way to the nearest motorway and buried my foot. Just after midnight we pulled on to the dock with the rest of the mob. We had made it!

This event is an awesome amount of fun, if you can spare the time and don't mind putting some effort into a good cause I would recommend you give it a go. Don't miss out!

If you would like to find out more about this event, or details on taking part follow this link to The Italian Job Website for more details.