Let’s face it, there’s only so many times you can drive your car around a track before you get very bored. You can’t drive it properly on the road because the fun police and the revenue raisers (aka speed camera operators) don’t find that sort of behaviour as amusing as you and I do.
But there are two very good states that are mostly car-person friendly. The Northern Territory has two stretches of roads with no speed limits. There is 200km from south of Barrow Creek to north of Alice Springs and a 72km stretch of road on the Stuart Highway.
Of course the minute you talk “no speed limits” the do-gooders talk death and destruction. Strangely enough, Northern Territory government figures show that in the first 11 months of limit-free driving on the above roads, there were no fatalities. Between 2004 and 2013 however, under the old speed limits, there were 12 deaths. Authorities ruled out speed as a key factor in each crash. Now don’t get me wrong, I love our great north. The Barrow Creek Hotel does some nice meals, has many original features and, according to reviewer Glen Ryan, a “great collection of pubobilia”. But there are not a lot of hills with sweeping bends, not many serious restaurants, and they don’t grow a lot of pinot up around there.
Which bring us to the alternative, Tasmania. Lonnie (Launceston) local David Cuff, former advanced driving instructor with John Bowe and chief designer at the Big Chop (seriously expensive wooden chopping boards), has set up Freedom Driving Tasmania to open the Apple Isle’s roads to tarmac lovers who are seeking some of the world’s greatest drives with minimal traffic.
Cuffie says he got frustrated living with a Ferrari 355 Spider in Melbourne.
“You see better cars in Melbourne than in the south of France but the most fun they have is revving out in first gear. There are so many good cars not being used properly,” he says.
Cuffie is providing a concierge service for owners of serious cars. He will store your car or bike in his garage in Lonnie, meet you at the airport, plan a drive with minimum fun stoppers, make all the bookings and let you fly. For $600 a month you can have all the fun of the Targa Tasmania without the other cars, eat yourself silly, drink responsibly at night and leave Cuffie to clean up after ([email protected]).
One man who loved Tasmania and cars as much as Cuffie was Malcolm Fraser. He set up the Australian Maritime College in Launceston and he was such a serious petrolhead that he was Juan Fangio’s passenger in Melbourne on the track in 1978 and presented fellow person of Canadian descent Allan Moffat with his Bathurst trophy the year before. He also reviewed Ford Fairlanes in 1976 and 2008 for Wheels magazine.
Fraser loved Lonnie, Lancias, literature and the odd libation. At Oxford in the 1950s, he lusted after the Lancia Aurelia but said he didn’t have the readies. He went on to own a series of BMWs, Mercs and Alfas, although his true passion remained with Lancia. His Lancia Flaminia 2.8 Berlina is pictured here. He owned a string of the Italians, including a rare Zagato bodied Lancia Flaminia Supersport, which is still in the family. Zagato made 150 and only three were right-hand drive. Fraser’s is probably worth somewhere over half a mill.
Read more at The Australian
