Rally Elan

October 21st – tourist day! We took the bus again and really the only times we got off were to change busses or to go on boat trips – and both boats we only made by the skin of our teeth, one had already cast off but as there were only 8 other passengers it was no problem. Today’s photos try to show the old (dhows) and the new (the infrastructure and skyline).

October 20th – Its a different world in Dubai! We got to our hotel after the flight from

Bandar Abbas at around 11.15 and by the time we got to bed it was past midnight. Our hotel is unashamed luxury, the staff are embarrassingly deferential, everything is available (at a price), ladies wear what they want from full burkas with just the eyes – showing at one extreme to (nearly) everything showing! The building work and skyline is amazing, there are excellent roads everywhere, driving is disciplined, all the cars are modern and clean – and the flight time was just 35 minutes. We bought a bus ticket and spent the day hopping off the bus and into tourist sites. This evening is our rally dinner – but the organisers have not yet got the cars to the containers; they had planned to do this without us being involved. The cars are in the UAE but the next part is unfinished and this evening we might find out what is happening and whether we may need to be involved tomorrow.

October 19th – up early (5.30) as I could not sleep – so checked the car’s points instead! The

gap had closed up. reset it and the car started ok so maybe that was it. We then convoyed to the port and spent about 3 hours being processed, getting back to the hotel at around 12.30. We are not expecting to see the car until Southampton.

October 18th – this was to have been a 9 hour day but after questions were asked, the route was shifted to become 7 hours. We had a navigational “moment” on leaving the hotel so had an unguided tour of Shiraz. The Garmin didn’t help as it repeatedly took us back to the same square and gave impossible directions. Eventually we got out and drove south into the heat of the desert – 39 according to Kieran. The car was not entirely happy and the water temperature was around 90 for most of the day. We had several spluttering sessions but outside of these the car ran well. Paul’s Mercedes suffered similarly; he changed points, condenser and plugs and the problem continued. Our problem may be points but the car starts ok which it doesn’t normally when points are dying. Anyway we now have just 10 km to go to the port and the next journey will be in England. Bandar Abbas is hotter and more humid than anywhere we have been before and we were dripping when we reached the hotel and its welcome air conditioning. Tomorrow is scheduled to be a day at the port, getting the car exported from Iran (then we can redeem our Carnet de Passage). First stop is the ferry to UAE then a transporter to the container port in Dubai.

October 17th – a day in Shiraz – somehow much more tiring than a day of driving and certainly

more expensive! A taxi into town brought us to the citadel, built 250 years ago, more like a palace but it has been a prison. Inside the gardens contained orange trees (every garden has orange trees, green skinned) but we didn’t try picking them! Then a bit of a ramble through various bazars to the Vakil Mosque, where we came upon our tour guide who was most concerned as he had lost one couple and was trying to find them. Then to the money changers and a teahouse before visiting the Shah Cheragh Mausoleum. This was a huge complex and seems to have absorbed what is marked o the map as a large intersection. It contains the graves of two brothers of the eighth Imam. Allison had to wear a Chador and we were accompanied by an official guide. Here we met two more sets of participants -there must be a statistic to calculate the odds but I guess they are low. Lunch was at a local restaurant up a side street – all Iranians apart from us. Another Mosque and a 150 year old house more gardens – and we were finished!

October 16th – the rally were organising a tour of Shiraz today and a trip (by car) to the ancient sites tomorrow. We preferred to reverse the programme so that if anything happened carwise en route, there would be a day in hand to sort it out. So we went to Persepolis and then to Pasegard.

Persepolis had changed since our last visit nearly 40 years ago. There was a visitor centre, stalls and car parking. The site had been protected against excess human traffic by way of screens and fenced off areas. None of which takes away from the spectacle. Then on to Pasegard, a disappointment but maybe I was thinking of another site at Naqsh-e-Rostam when I remembered what we saw before.
Wherever we went the Elan was the most photographed object in town.

October 15th – we took advantage of the 6am breakfast and were on the road by 7.00,heading for Shiraz.

The direct route was 4 1/2 hours, ours was slightly longer but we avoided the roughest section and were in Shiraz shortly after 3pm. En route we had our first motoring incident, peacefully bumbling along the motorway, a local drove into the passengers door – a glancing blow, I guess he was so busy looking that he didn’t see where he was. I jumped out and shouted at him – after hooting furiously at him. He didn’t try to protest any innocence and indicated that the marks could be polished off. There was no physical damage, just we ended up with some of his rubber strip and white paint and he had some of our red! He was a bit alarmed that I was dripping blood – caught my thumb on something whilst jumping out. However he kissed me on both cheeks, we shook hands and that was it. Allison says the door closed better afterwards.
We went on past the hotel to the Barg-e-Eram, the most important of the numerous gardens in Shiraz, a peaceful and quiet contrast to the noise and bustle of city driving in Iran! Our room is on the corner of the 16th floor with views onto the mountains ringing the city one way and the car park the other – to see a little red car way down below!

October 14th – second rest day. I tightened the fan belt before breakfast and found we had lost one of the bolts securing the alternator. Timothy had spent yesterday in the car park working on the Lagonda and reported a steady stream of visitors – the Lotus bonnet would be full of fingerprints! Everybody was asking him what was happening so he really needed an assistant just to speak with people! Half the rally went on a

tour of contrasts in the morning, first to the exceptionally plain Friday Mosque, tiled in the courtyard but inside just bricks and a little mud coloured plaster, different styles of brickwork – a huge complex constructed over seven centuries. Part was rebuilt following an airstrike in the Iran-Iraq war. Then to the Armenian St Saviours Cathedral – the interior covered in paintings, some depicting the gruesome tortures of saints. An unusual Cathedral in that it had a Mosque-like dome to stay in keeping with the surrounding architecture.
We then went to the Khaju Bridge – now an irrelevance as the Zayanden River has been redirected to provide water for Yazd. The riverbed is dry as a bone and surprisingly free of debris. A fleet of pedalos stand forlornly by the bank. Then to the Palace of Hasht Behesht and the inevitable ice cream at the Abbasi Hotel for Allison.

October 13th – the first of 2 rest days in Isfahan. Brief check of car before breakfast – need to tighten up fan belt otherwise all seems ok. A tour was arranged to the four main sites in Isfahan

– the two Mosques on the main square, Maidan-e-Imam (it had different names in the past), Ali Qapu Palace and Chehel Sotun. This was followed by a trip to a carpet shop and lunch. Allison thought but not for long about a carpet. The others were more serious and were going to go back later. Then a meander round the bazar, after which Allison realised she had lost her camera. We retraced our steps – souvenir shop, pistaccio shop, exchange booth and found it on top of a pile of nougat in the sweet shop – untouched. We ended at the Abbassi Hotel for afternoon tea; Allison had come here with her mother 40 years ago and it was the highlight of mother’s trip to Iran. Returning to our hotel after supper, I was crossing a 4 lane dual carriageway when a policeman came out, shook my hand and stopped the traffic for me!

October 12th – a long drive to Isfahan so the interest had to come from the road. Today was part

of Ashura and the roads were empty – of cars. In the towns there were processions – drums. flags, people with “mud” on their hair, face and clothes and the rituals of self-flagellation.
On the road we came across the stationary Mercedes of Paul & Sandra – this time a broken fan belt. After problems with the gears and ongoing unhappiness with the ignition timing, Paul’s comment was – I should have brought a Lotus!
Altogether three rally cars came to Paul’s aid as well as numerous Iranians, some to take photos – mainly of the Lotus, but there was also the Mercedes and the Porsche to choose from. One kind man went back to the nearest town and returned with lunch boxes for each rally car. The friendliness of the Iranians cannot be overstated, they ask where we are from and say “welcome to our country” – the only exception being when you are lost at a road junction, unable to read the Farsi signs and not knowing where the places are anyway – then impatience and hooting are the order of the day.

October 11th – the direct route to Kermanshah is 130km and takes just over 2 hours.

Our route was up into the hills of Kurdistan, overlooking Iraq and was nearer 350km and 7 hours. We came across a broken down Mercedes early on –they were stuck in 5th gear, fortunately they were able to hammer the external gear linkage which was jammed and were able to continue. Then we had a lengthy stop at a military control point, together with the Mercedes of Phil & Kieron – but not the Landrover of Dina & Bernard which sailed on through as the soldiers were looking the other way; frantic military hand-waving went unnoticed! We spent a good 20 minutes whilst our passports were checked and phone calls made. We were told not to take photos but of course every passing car had mobile phones out taking photos of the Elan! One can understand their suspicion, after all why would any sensible person take a 350 km trip to another town when 130 was on offer?
The route split after a while; we opted for the shorter and quicker route – probably just as well because the other route was extremely rough. We stopped at an empty layby to look out over Iraq. The layby soon filled up and the cameras were out in force; people were in the car, on the car and around the car. Two teenage girls came up from another layby and had a long conversation with Allison, also translating questions from the others and our answers about the car. The upshot was that we were invited to lunch at Grandma’s but first we had tea with them in their layby – cue more Lotus viewing and photos! After lunch we set off on a route which crossed between the road we wanted to be on and the main route of the day, joining just after the end of their rough section. Concerned over the gearbox – a new noise and very hot. The gear lever rubber sleeve had come off – so that may explain some of the noise – and checked the oil so we’ll see how tomorrow fares.
At the hotel, Phil and Kieron told how they were nearly blown up – rock blasting was taking place on the main rally route (the rough part) but the only warning was a man in dusty clothes, running around and waving his arms. They took him for a village idiot but stopped when the car behind them stopped and flashed – the road ahead was soon covered in rockfall……

October 10th – today we planned to go completely off route by visiting the remains at Tahkt-e-Soleyman

en-route to Sanandaj. The rally had encouraged us to use a navigational app called Gallileo – we had the app but not got round to loading the tracks or using it. Today we wanted it to make sure that we knew where we were as I was not sure if I could program the Garmin sat nav. In the event we used both though relying mainly on the Garmin. I missed the first turning and then we were confused when the Garmin tried to make us drive across a dual carriageway and through the Armco in the central barrier! Eventually we got on the right road and navigation was ok thereafter; we rejoined the rally route about 80 km before Sanandaj.
The site was built around a crater and enclosed in 200AD. It contained a Zoroastrian Fire Temple where the Kings used to come to complete their accession. We had the site virtually to ourselves, most of the other visitors being Iranian.
Leaving Tahkt-e-Soleyman we had our first puncture of the trip and 10km later found a town where it was repaired. The sight of the Elan drew the crowds and as usual I found it very difficult to answer one of the most common questions – how much does it cost? How would you value a collector’s car in a country where there are no spares and often unsuitable roads? The mobile phone cameras are out in force everywhere the Elan appears and its difficult to tell if men or women are the greatest fans! Two cars are now “out” of the rally -the Lagonda, being trucked to Isfahan when new parts from UK should be fitted, and the Bentley, now on a truck to Bandar Abbas with steering failure.
Our evening meal was in town and, as we left, the streets in the centre were eerily quiet as the police had closed the roads – probably anticipating tomorrow’s Ashura processions and marches.

October 9th – we could have done the scenic route to Zanjan which involves gravel and slow roads and an average speed of 42kph over 2 hours – but we didn’t! So it was a gentle day’s travel and we arrived in our hotel at 2pm.

We spoke with Timothy, the rally mechanic, who diagnosed the dripping oil as a failed seal on the cable drive – which is what I thought but still not sure just where it is. 40km out from the hotel we came upon a broken down Bentley, spewing steering fluid onto the road. They had set out early to do the full route in daylight (for the first time) so not the best start to their day. We could not help apart from moral support and they contacted Timothy who should be along in about an hour. That was the only rally car we saw all day.
Our route was along the Caspian – but not close enough to see – and then climbed to 2300m and a completely different landscape. This was back to dusty desert and hillside dwellings, far away from the bustle of the coast. We took a taxi into town and wandered through the bazaar and past the outside of some mosques.
Every town has black flags fluttering as it is early in the month of Moharram; women should wear more sombre clothes in the days leading up to the religious festival of Ashura which is next Tuesday. Certainly in the streets, the vast majority of women wore black chadors.

October 8th – surprisingly all the rally cleared the border and got to Tabriz though some of them did not arrive till past midnight. The Lagonda needs garage repairs and plans to join later when we have rest days. We fixed the horn but failed with the window – one pulley has come adrift and needs refixing so the window is held up with the universal repair tool – cable ties.

We motored gently to Astara via Ardebil, hoping to visit a Sufi World Heritage site on the way – but lost the signposts so failed on that as well! Astara is on the Azerbijan border and it is odd to see the border fence, topped with razor wire alongside the road as it drops down from the dry desert plateau to the damp greenery of the Caspian. In the evening we took a taxi into town and after a tour round the sites had a meal, whilst the taxi driver went to change some money for us. Where else would you give a taxi driver USD 200 and expect to get it back again? The driver didn’t speak much English so the communication was via his sister on his mobile phone!
October 7th – this was always going to be a long day – and it was. In theory we could do just 500km and a border crossing (which was known to be a long slow and inefficient process). We set out at 7am and made good progress until we were stopped by Paul & Sandra’s Mercedes – the road ahead had been closed by the military. We turned round and soon came across the Bentley who followed behind. In the first village we found Paul & Sandra who were getting instruction from a local on a rough track which bypassed the closure. He said we would never make it over the rough terrain and as we did not have the mapping equipment which the others had we continued to retrace our route. The Bentley stopped to have a puncture fixed and we soon came upon the other Mercedes (Phil & Keron). Together we decided not to risk the rough track but to complete 3 sides of the square and add over 300km to our day by travelling north to join the main truck route.
At the border there was a 13km queue of lorries, two abreast waiting to cross – what an extraordinary waste of time, money and people’s lives! It took us about 3 hours to complete all the formalities – including all our fingerprints, twice, on a sheet of A4. Then on to Tabriz, only stopped once by the police, which we reached just after 8pm, well into darkness. Not my idea of fun as night driving was definitely on my “don’t want” list. The Elan is attracting interest from everyone all the time; every second car overtakes us, lets us overtake, hoots, waves, flashes or calls out to us. If we charged per photo we’d be rich! A very tiring day but there are no more border crossings so hopefully it will be the worst day. The car is doing amazingly well, the only things I know I have to look at are the horn, passenger’s window and the recurrence of the gearbox oil being pushed up the speedo cable and dripping onto my legs.

October 6th – we got covered in “stuff”! Overnight

we were parked under a tree and the red elan was unmissable target practice. My first task was therefore to clean the car so our early start was a little delayed. We sorted out a route thanks to TomTom which took us as we thought onto a ferry (TomTom picture of a boat was a hint) but the ferry had turned a splendid and empty bridge. After the bridge the road looked and smelt like liquid tarmac – and if something smells like a pig and looks like a pig it probably is a pig! It seems they had spread the liquid tar but not got round to the chippings. I figured that if I went slowly I would get stuck – so I carried on at normal speed for a good surface. When we got to the next town the brakes made a horrible noise so we stopped at a friendly fuel station to check them out. The tyres, which I had worried about, were clean but the sides of the car were covered with black tar and puddles of tar were forming on the ground, where it was dripping off the underside and suspension …… What a mess! The garage brought us glasses of tea and the men sat round as we emptied the boot to find the jack handle to check the brake pads – which were fine. I made gestures of cleaning and after a reply in Turkish I was handed a smart phone with the translated message – “purge with diesel”. Penny dropped – after a road incident involving diesel, the road is resurfaced – diesel kills tar.
We continued our 8½ hour drive to Van, where the black car had become brown as dirt and dust adhered to the wet tar and baked in the heat of the day! The first fuel station with a washing function couldn’t help but the second could and the chief mechanic knew exactly what to do – and an hour later we had a sparkling clean car – though the underside and suspension will have to wait till we get back home. How long we have to love the smell of diesel remains to be seen.

October 5th – the longest day so far at 9 hours plus stops. Some of the group left at 5am for balloon rides over the valleys and at breakfast we saw about 20 of them gliding over the valley and as we set out we saw them again, deflating on the ground. Driving at night was not what we wanted so we pushed on as fast as we could and our only sight seeing was the burial mound and statutes to King Antiochus and his family on top of Mount Nemrut.

We reached our hotel just after dark at about 6.30; Allison said the engine felt lumpy after she drove the last leg but a quick fluid level check was all that we had the energy for!

October 4th – a short day scheduled for 6 hours which we reduced to 4½ by using the main roads more. Our first stop was Church of St Jean at Gulsheir – carved out of the inside of a lump of rock

and contains some unusual frescos. This is the appeal of Cappadoccia where rocks take on strange shapes and are frequently hollowed out as houses and, in the case of our next visit to Tatlarin, underground cities. Then to the Castle at Orchisar, a mix of carved rock and construction, right in the centre of a town largely devoid of tourists. Our last stop was Sword Valley, not many tourists but there was a film crew filming a TV episode. Getting to our hotel from the wrong direction was a challenge as the GPS was in the right place but too high up as the hotel occupied several layers of building on the side of a cliff face.

October 3rd – photographs and general milling around delayed our departure

but eventually we left into more Istanbul traffic – and the car following us, following the car in front all got lost as the Garmin (supplied by the rally) lost signal in the underpass. An illicit U turn corrected that error but more were to follow as the day wore on. So much so that Allison for whom our recently acquired TomTom was a thing to be distrusted, was soon calling out for me to chuck out the Garmin and bring back the TomTom – but the Garmin has our route programmed into it so not an easy option.
The route book said that we had an 8 hour day ahead of us; we decided that after a late start and a few wrong turns, we would follow the main road, forsaking the scenic route – but we did arrive with daylight to spare whilst most of those who followed the route were driving in the dark. We checked the car over, planned our route – using TomTom – for tomorrow with hopefully sightseeing time in the strange world of Cappadocia. Our hotel is a series of caves – and I’m not sure whether caveman has internet…..

October 2nd – this was planned as a short day – just 4 hours plus a border crossing and unsurprisingly it didn’t quite turn out that way! We reached the border ok but when it came to buying our third party insurance, the website had crashed so we spent over an hour waiting to buy this legally required but totally irrelevant document. Our wait was small compared to a guy who was taking his bike to a biking event in Anatolya. He had to insure both his bike and his van – the complication being that one person was bring in two road legal vehicles – he had arrived at 3am and it was now midday….
We stopped in Edirne to see the Selimiye Mosque – a World Heritage site – and the Lotus was much

admired in a town that is usually bypassed by folk hurrying away from the border. Then to Istanbul. TomTom’s assessment of journey time was way out as we entered an 20 km traffic jam. Thanks to the powerful fans supplied by Cliveyboy.com the temperature never rose above about 90 degrees and overheating was not a concern (it was 30 degrees outside). TomTom didn’t recognise our hotel but I had set a neighbouring one as our destination so we arrived in time for the evening fally briefing – with pole position right outside the front doors.

October 1st – after a non breakfast we headed further south east. The car is using a little oil and this morning the radiator needed a top up. It was warm and hazy as we passed Belgrade and pushed our way past various road works. Sight seeing was in short supply on this trip as we hurry to catch up the day we lost but we did manage a visit to a 14th century monastery set up in the hills.
The border to Bulgaria was empty and the crossing quick. The main road was dual carriageway in the main and avoided most towns – except Sofia where TomTom reckoned that straight through the centre was better than the ring road. There is no way of knowing if that was the right choice as there is no control to compare against – you have to believe it or not! The route out of Serbia was slow as the road is still being built but Bulgaria (apart from Sofia) seems to be all dual carriageway and much of it very new.
Tonight we stopped in Haskovo (as planned) and in theory tomorrow needs only 350kms and one border crossing to our hotel in Istanbul ….and the minor matter of navigating through that huge and busy city!
September 30 – our hotel was everything you might expect of a southern German hotel, a jovial host in lederhosen, wood everywhere, large portions and an excellent breakfast. The Elan was parked in the beer garden overnight – hope it had a good time!
We were on the road at eight and planned to get south of Zagreb for the night so as to be somewhere near our original plan – and it worked; we spent the night just north of Belgrade having travelled through five countries to get there – Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
The car hummed, the only problem being at the border crossings where the clutch wouldn’t disengage – annoying as the slave cylinder was new the week before we left, the master cylinder refurbished a few months ago and fluid levels fine.
We were navigating on the TomTom and after Zagreb its instructions were simple – 375km straight on. Night fell as we crossed into Serbia and I was uncertain as to the quality of the road, it was dual carriageway, the slow lane was bumpy from all the trucks and the outside occupied by folk travelling much faster than us – at 70 we were constantly overtaken but much faster and the car felt unstable – I will have to chat with Spyder again when the car gets back home.
We were fortunate to be travelling east and south – our border queues were relatively short but the other way, towards western Europe they were long and slow.
Neither Croatia nor Serbia are in the Euro and we had no local currency – but thanks to plastic this was not a problem – fuel, tolls, motorway vignette, restaurant and hotel – all gobbled up by a piece of plastic! After leaving the motorway we stopped at a petrol station and asked about hotels (the language being a cross between German and sign language). The instructions included “rotunda” (roundabout) and semaphore (traffic lights) but when we arrived a local policeman said it was closed! Cue more instructions but incomprehensible – so our friendly cop jumped into his car and lead us back to the motorway we had just left, down a track and back towards town – was this an exercise in obfuscation? No, the road was closed. The hotel was a massive construction and hosting an 18th birthday party for 150 people so the restaurant was closed. More sign language/German established that they had a room but no meals and cost all of 28 Euros so where could we eat? More half German/sign language confused the message whilst the athletics club, the beton on the road, the police and the lefts and rights morphed into each other so the porter got into his car and we followed him! The beton on the road and the police merged to become a sleeping policeman and some lefts became right but we got there! He then arranged our meal and we gorged on meat, meat and more meat with a little beer to wash it down. Our first impression of the Serbs was very pleasant – last time we were in the area it had been Yugoslavia and the main road a ribbon of tarmac with dirt tracks off each side.

September 29th, we have reached the small historic town of Altdorf near Nurnberg – but it wasn’t meant to be like this – we had planned to be in Zagreb. We started as planned on the ferry to Hook of Holland but then worried too much about the car’s poor starting! The car had been fine before going to the workshop for a change of engine gaskets; when it came back the starter was grinding rather than spinning rapidly. It did not improve much after the evening trip (with lights) to Harwich but stalled on the boat and only just started. Thinking about it rather than sleeping I decided I was worried about starting a rally with a non-starting car. Was it the electrical connections (via the chassis), the battery or the starter? Not the first as I had cleaned them recently but there again both the battery and the starter were also new! I reckoned I could pick up a battery anywhere – but a starter? I had one at home so to cut a long story short we took a circuitous journey back home from Hook of Holland, picked up the starter and set off again but 24 hours late and this time via Dover/Calais as the Harwich ferry was fully booked. By now battery and starter were fine!!
Thus after a (very) early morning ferry we had a long drive to Nurnberg, held up by numerous roadworks and are still not as close to Istanbul as we should have been yesterday! We have two more long hard drives ahead of us if we are to make the rally start!

We set out tomorrow for our third long distance rally in thirteen months – that represents over 16,000 miles, not bad for a car that becomes 50 next year!
A number of things went wrong in Norway so some have been resolved –
– points so we have a Boyer Bransden for negative earth (the old positive earth version is now on the yellow Elan),
– we replaced the rear wishbones,
– the engine had been very noisy so the cam cover came off and the cam lobes were found to be disintegrating! That meant new cams and new cam cups – as well as flushing the engine to remove any loose swarf.
– still overheating so we have a pair of Revotec “pull” fans mounted between the engine and the radiator – kindly supplied by cliveyboy.com
– the engine continues to run after the ignition is switched off – not sorted yet; I’m sure its connected to the fans and cliveyboy has sent me a new fan controller (but I’ve not fitted it yet). The problem is electrical and could be a result of changing the ignition switch – get to that in due course!
– fully refurbed steering rack ( so hopefully the car will go where its pointed and not jump around the road!)

So where to this time? The title says it all – first stop Istanbul where the rally starts then through Turkey and Iran to the Persian Gulf; we take the quick route home (fly) whilst the Lotus has another container trip. I’ll try to update the story and photos as we go along.