Enjoying an E-type and introducing Italians to haute cuisine Dorset style
Although, having said that, my standard reply to the ‘what’s the best car you’ve ever driven’ question is still the XKSS.
Anyway we introduced our Italian visitors from Turin to the grease-fest of fish and chips (which amazingly they polished off), did a few more shots on cliffs with enough dry spells to keep the hood down now and finally retired to our stylish 1930s hotel in Bournemouth.
Andrea had booked himself into the one next door originally, only to find it was run along Fawlty Towers lines that he may have found amusing if he had ever actually seen an episode of Fawlty Towers.
He managed to dig out a restaurant for dinner (Gilby’s) where we chatted about Italy without Mr Berlusconi and a Flaminia Coupé that is coming up for sale.
Next day the E-type had to be dropped off for detailing with Mike Sloper in Marlborough.
Mike was positively salivating at the prospect of getting hold of it, but before he did I gave my pal Jon a go and he returned the favour by giving me a terrifying ride back to Cirencester in his manual XJ-S… which still goes pretty well even on nine and a half cylinders out of 12.
