Wednesday morning saw us gathering in the car park of the Lingotto hotel, which once formed the main Fiat factory and on the roof of which is the racetrack with curved banks which features in the main chase scene in the 1969 Italian Job film.
The roof track is now used by hotel guests as a jogging circuit, but the Minis are invited up to recreate part of the film. It was a real case of bad news/good news.
The bad news was the overnight rain had left the banks very wet and the hotel would not let the cars drive around them as there would be little tyre grip. When we reached the top we could fully understand their reason as the bank is very steep. For one fellow Jobber this was their fourth visit to Turin and they had never been allowed to drive the banks, so that shows how rare it actually is.
The good news is that we were still allowed up on to the roof in our cars and we led the convoy up the famous ramps and were the first Mini onto the roof. There was plenty of time for posing for photos and for walking around.
Given that many Minis had been before and as we were not allowed to drive the banks, many cars decided to leave early and head straight for our next stop at Monte Carlo, Monaco. That meant that we had the opportunity to do some driving up and down the race straights once there was room to do so. That was a great consolation and we took plenty of video film of that!
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