Transport to the Alps - November

Right, first things first. Transport. Flying out to the Alps is the traditional method of heading on a ski trip, but doesn’t give me a lot of flexibility. In addition, most airlines will also charge you the price of a small estate in the Cotswolds just to carry a tennis racket, and BA even refuse to carry my surfboard at all now.

And I’m going to have kit, and lots of it. As any bloke knows, the amount of “kit” you’ve got is crucial. There is no such thing as “too much kit”. If you’re female and disagree, just take a look at your shoe collection and ask whether there’s space for another pair of Jimmy Choos. And I have a lot of ski kit. 3 pairs of skis, ski boots, ski poles, a snowboard and snowboard boots to start with. Oh yes, and a stuffed badger.

I’m a big fan of “challenging transport”, having towed a caravan across the Sahara Desert, a Rickshaw coast to coast across India and a £91 BMW 2,000 miles across Europe in 5 days. My first thought was up the challenge a little more and take some entirely inappropriate transport. My Vespa immediately sprung to mind, but there’s a very good reason why you’re more likely to see Lord Lucan in a ski resort than a motorbike. Next idea was my beloved MGB roadster, but I’ve had to discount that because it’s a) Not waterproof and the heater has broken b) Dangerous to drive in the wet, let alone on snow and c) Less reliable than an Italian politician.

So it appears I have bought another car. I was very careful in my research, deciding exactly what I needed. Four wheel drive of course. A big boot to fit lots of kit in. Leather seats, because I’d never had a car with leather seats before. And a twin-turbocharged engine with a bonnet scoop, because I’m a bloke.

So still extremely hungover last night, I trekked down to Croydon and bought a 2000 Subaru GTB estate car with 144,000 miles on the clock. That’s quite a high mileage for a car with a very highly tuned (and supposedly quite fragile) engine, in fact it’s about the same as driving around the earth 6 times. Spare parts will also be a bit of an issue, because the model was never officially sold in the UK. For some reason Subaru UK never imported it because they didn’t think there was that much of a market for 170mph estate cars.

I also took the sensible step of not taking it for a test drive because I wasn’t really legally sober yet. And I looked at it in the dark, because of some train delays. However, due to its particularly dishevelled appearance and astronomic mileage I got it for a song.

I look forward to picking it up and seeing if it actually drives. I never said I’d be that practical.

Update:

Turns out the car is purple. Which is a bit of a surprise, but also a lesson on why not to buy a car in the dark.