The Itali
Three Mini Coopers, 1,700 miles, four days and no doors blown off. ShortList’s Howardr, there’s been a slightchange of plan withyour Italian Job roadtrip,” says my editor.
“You can’t pick up theMinis in Italy any more. They’ll bedelivered here, to the office, instead.
But it’s only a few extra miles, right?”
I stare at my fellow travelcompanions, deputy editor Gershon
Portnoi and art director Kevin Fay.
To say that anticipation levels werehigh about this trip would be anunderstatement. The brief? Fly toItaly, pick up three Mini Coopers
and seek out some of the filming
locations from The Italian Job.
A jaunt through Turin’s narrow,traffic-filled streets, followed bya journey along twisty roads thatwould test The Stig’s mettle. We
may even be able to career downsome steps if one of us takes adisastrous wrong turn.
The climax of the trip would be
an expedition up Mount Belvedere
to locate the spot where the coach,complete with gold, Michael Caine,
Benny Hill and the other robbers,
famously teeters over the edge ofthe cliff. There’d be pizza, fine wine,
ice cream, maybe a glass or two ofgrappa and a chance to bond withmy colleagues (largely via walkietalkies), all from the confines of theair-conditioned, Driving Anthemsfilled interior of the latest limitededition Mini Cooper.
And then our editor broke thenews about the trip extension. By
a mere 1,500 miles. In four days. We
Google the route and peer at the E15
and E35 dual carriageways, winding
their way from Calais to Strasbourg
in the west of France. This is going tocall for some driving gloves…

Etalkies via the traditional range ofhandles and terminology (“Can I geta 10-36, Shorty?” “Roger that”), andhead out of London as the “chinlesswonders that will get you out ofTurin faster than anyone else on fourwheels” – me in the red car, Gershon
in white and Kevin in blue. A team.
Unstoppable. Ten miles in I realise
my lights are on. Full-beam.
After exiting the Eurotunnel, thewords of Charlie Croker flash into
my mind: “Just remember this: in thiscountry, they drive on the wrong sideof the road.” It’s obvious the others
are keen to put the cars to the test,
whereas my driving skills – whichhave been compared by friends toa pensioner’s – are clearly going to
be stretched as I immediately fall tothe rear. However, the car is unlike
anything I’ve driven before. It hits
105mph without me realising, anda button marked ‘Sport’ glints next
to the gear stick. I decide to save it
for the winding roads of the Alps.
The other problem is navigation.
We only have two satnavs between
the three of us. Mine welcomes mewith the message: “Your maps are
now 63 months old and 52 percent are out of date.” We are now
depending on Kevin ‘The Stig’ fordirection, so have to stay close. And
he isn’t shy of pushing the car to its
limit (he is flashed by a speed camera,
for the first time, withinfour hours of driving).

ROAD TO NOWHERE

The first thing I learn about my travelcompanions is that Kevin loves todrive in shorts. As the sun blazes,
Gershon and I instantly regret notwearing ours. We test the walkie
6 0w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o mmichael caine(right) as charlie
croker in the 1969 film

lian Job
RoadMovieSpecial

Calvert, along with two other ‘chinless wonders’, recreates the Michael Caine classic

the coach in the italianjob didn’t find such agreat parking spot

Shortlist’s minis safely
parked at the top ofmount belvederethe i ta l i an jo b

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

After a breakfast consisting largely of
Swiss cheese (when in Rome…), weare back in the cars by 9am. I pick up
a handful of Toblerones for the journey,slightly worried it may trigger somekind of Alan Partridge-esque addiction.
Kevin has been out to buy windowcleaning spray and a cloth. He spends
a large amount of the rest of the trip
polishing our windscreens, like one ofthose men at traffic lights.
Driving on your own is a strange
experience. Most people, apart fromlong-distance lorry drivers, avoid it. But
after a while (about 200 miles), yourthoughts drift into a Zen-like state. As
budding philosopher Gershon admits,“I do enjoy a good drive and a think.”
As we travel south throughSwitzerland, the scenery becomesan increasingly dangerous distraction.
Snowcapped mountains rise up
behind petrol stations as we climb
towards the Grand St Bernard Pass.
The turns in the road become more
hairpin-like, and I decide it is time topress the ‘Sport’ button. I grip thewheel, expecting some kind of nitrous
boost. What actually happens is thatthe engine becomes slightly noisier.
Three hours of unforgettable driving
later, we’re in Turin, relieved to discoverthat, although busy, the traffic is
nowhere near the levels of gridlock in
the film. After consuming a huge pizza,
we ask a few locals about The Italiana scene from the film wechose not to recreate…

Job. We draw blank stares. Only ourhotel receptionist shows recognition.
“I saw it when it came out, but it was
not very big here,” he says. This explains
why no one has given our Minis afriendly beep. He shows me some key
locations on a map. I ask him where
they blew the bloody doors off. He looks
at me obliviously. I fold up my map.

VIEW FROM THE TOP

Up early again the next day, we locate
the Piazza San Carlo, the scene of thehuge jam in the film. The square is now
closed to traffic, but Kevin wants us topark in it for a shot. Minutes after driving
in, two traffic wardens approach.
Despite our Michael Caine impressions,they move us on. We locate the Piazza

Cinema’s
mosticonic
cars
Parked next tothe Minis in our
fantasy garage…

’73Chevrolet
Chevelle
Malibu SS
Drive’76 AMC
Pacer

Wayne’s World’70 Dodge
Challenger
Vanishing Point’61 Jaguar
Mk II 2.4-litre
Withnail & I

6 2w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o m

who needsbarriers?

“Drive on theleft, right? right?”

Palazzo di Citra, where the ambush on
the security van took place. We havetime for one picture before a policeman
ejects us. We decide Turin is too
well-policed, and journey insteadto the scene of that finale.
The drive up Belvedere isspectacular. A narrow road ascends themountain through tiny alpine villages,
over a dam and across a lake, aroundhairpins with flimsy barriers, until wereach 2,600m above sea level. Then, as
our petrol gauges start to flash ‘Range:
30km’ (“We could freewheel down,”
I suggest), we find the spot.
We carefully manoeuvre our Ministo where the coach hung off. As we exit
the cars grinning, a group of 15 passing
Italian cyclists start shouting “TheItalian Job” at us. They pull up and, aftersome coaching, we get them to say“You were only supposed to blow thebloody doors off” in unison. Success.
We can’t hang around for long; wehave to drive back over the Grand St
Bernard Pass to our hotel in Basel. We
make it over the Pass as sun sets
which, after the sights that day, seems
almost as standard as driving between
junctions five and nine of the M25.
We leave early the next morning forthe final leg and stop only once, giving
Kevin and Gershon a chance to movemy car behind a van as I buy a coffee.
My panic as I gape at the empty
parking space induces hysterics inboth of them. As we exit theEurotunnel and head our separate
ways, I momentarily feel lost without
my Mini cohorts. I bite into a Toblerone,and decide I’ll happily take thisending over the one in the film.

the italian cyclists whowere taught a vital
british phrasea brief stop in thepiazza san carlo

takethe trip

RoadMovieSpecial

Get there: Only one car will
do: Mini.co.uk. You’ll also needEurotunnel.com.
Get out of the car: Asidefrom what we crammed into
four days, you can also visit
the Chiesa della Gran Madre diDio, which boasts the church
steps the Minis drive down,
and The Palavela Torino(Palavelatorino.it), the building
the Minis drive on to the roofof to outmanoeuvre the police.
It now houses an ice rink.
londonfolkestonecalaisparis1 7 1 6 Milesbaselturinphotographs: © KEVIN FAY, ALLSTAR, KOBAL photographs shot with a Nikon D800 DSLR (£2,042), 24-70mm lens (£1,235) andSB-910 Speedlight Flashgun (£330); nikon.co.uk

By 3pm, we decide it’s timefor lunch. “There’s a Le Boeuf auJardin coming up,” crackles Kevin over
the walkie talkie. “Sounds good,” I reply,slowly translating with my sub-GCSEFrench. ‘The Beef Garden’? Our hopes
for a culinary feast are high as we see awaitress carving a huge leg of ham. Butas we eat a stark realisation hits us: theham is 80 per cent fat and in a powerfulmustard gravy. We head back to ourcars hungry, still with five hours to ourdestination: Basel, Switzerland.
What feels like days later, we checkinto our hotel and stumble into thefirst restaurant we find, serving thatauthentic Swiss speciality, tapas. After
discussing our cars (Gershon: “I get somuch joy from making the voiceactivated radio work”), we realise we’veclocked up 550 miles, and have asimilar amount to cover tomorrow. We
quickly finish our chorizo and turn in.