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In my continuing mission to do ridiculous things in my ridiculously wonderful 12C, I took Gina to Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle and back over the last fortnight - a 3000 mile round trip including the hack up through Denmark. Mileage limit schmileage limit!
Our route took in some incredible roads and scenery and we were blessed with stunning weather too.
If you've ever driven Scotland or the greener parts of the Rockies the landscapes will be familiar. Roads were superb quality, really puts our English b-roads to shame, loads of open sweepers. I ended up leaving the car in sport handling a lot of the time and still had a smooth ride - don't think I could get away with that in the UK over long distances.
Biggest frustration was the achingly low speed limits on some stretches in the South of the country. 50kmh on roads that a 12C could easily triple. Speed cameras in Norway are evil cyclops type things painted stealth grey - incredibly hard to spot from a distance.
How did the car cope? Superbly, really comfortable over long stretches. Enough luggage space for a not too precious co-pilot and me. I was slightly concerned about car ferry on/off ramps but they were all traversable, a few I did the diagonal approach thing on (I don't have lifters).
Locals were uniformly wowed and bowled over by the car. A lot of 'what on earth is it' or for the car nuts 'oh my god, I never thought I'd see one in the flesh'. Ferry queues felt like a bit of a rockstar as everyone would want pictures or to come chat about it. From the number of phones being waved at us, I get the impression we added an awful lot of orange McLaren to Norwegian car forums over the last two weeks.
Other exotica was thin on the ground, although we see quite a lot of classic US muscle, one California (with, shock, a friendly owner) and this pretty little Porsche in our Oslo underground carpark.
Getting down into the Grand Hotel in Oslo was a pretty hairy it turned out with the ramp really steep, but the garage trolls had planks to hand and cm by cm guided the car in (and out). I wouldn't want to chance anything wider or with less ground clearance.
We stayed in some great out of the way places, but needless to say an MO 12C stands out a little bit when everyone else is in an RV or eurobox. Goes with the territory though
Doris got a bit confused a few times coming in/out of tunnels or after ferry crossings, but nothing that a restart didn't fix. Apart from that the car was faultless, even hitting 39.5 MPG on one cruise-control enabled section.
Best stretches - the E6 North from Mo i Rana, the E10 across the Western Lofoten Islands and the top of Highway 17 from Bodø down to Halsa.
Great country for driving once you get away from the more populous areas, just a shame it's such a schlep to get there! More pics (with slightly less car porn) here.
Our route took in some incredible roads and scenery and we were blessed with stunning weather too.
If you've ever driven Scotland or the greener parts of the Rockies the landscapes will be familiar. Roads were superb quality, really puts our English b-roads to shame, loads of open sweepers. I ended up leaving the car in sport handling a lot of the time and still had a smooth ride - don't think I could get away with that in the UK over long distances.
Biggest frustration was the achingly low speed limits on some stretches in the South of the country. 50kmh on roads that a 12C could easily triple. Speed cameras in Norway are evil cyclops type things painted stealth grey - incredibly hard to spot from a distance.
How did the car cope? Superbly, really comfortable over long stretches. Enough luggage space for a not too precious co-pilot and me. I was slightly concerned about car ferry on/off ramps but they were all traversable, a few I did the diagonal approach thing on (I don't have lifters).
Locals were uniformly wowed and bowled over by the car. A lot of 'what on earth is it' or for the car nuts 'oh my god, I never thought I'd see one in the flesh'. Ferry queues felt like a bit of a rockstar as everyone would want pictures or to come chat about it. From the number of phones being waved at us, I get the impression we added an awful lot of orange McLaren to Norwegian car forums over the last two weeks.
Other exotica was thin on the ground, although we see quite a lot of classic US muscle, one California (with, shock, a friendly owner) and this pretty little Porsche in our Oslo underground carpark.
Getting down into the Grand Hotel in Oslo was a pretty hairy it turned out with the ramp really steep, but the garage trolls had planks to hand and cm by cm guided the car in (and out). I wouldn't want to chance anything wider or with less ground clearance.
We stayed in some great out of the way places, but needless to say an MO 12C stands out a little bit when everyone else is in an RV or eurobox. Goes with the territory though
Doris got a bit confused a few times coming in/out of tunnels or after ferry crossings, but nothing that a restart didn't fix. Apart from that the car was faultless, even hitting 39.5 MPG on one cruise-control enabled section.
Best stretches - the E6 North from Mo i Rana, the E10 across the Western Lofoten Islands and the top of Highway 17 from Bodø down to Halsa.
Great country for driving once you get away from the more populous areas, just a shame it's such a schlep to get there! More pics (with slightly less car porn) here.
