General A Classic 500 Trip around Scotland? (Hotels included)

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General A Classic 500 Trip around Scotland? (Hotels included)

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Just received this from a chap called Douglas who is looking to organise a road trip around the Scottish Highlands to promote tourism and has asked for our help.

Have a little read of this - and if it sounds interesting, let me know and I can put you guys in touch :)

Hello - As an intro, I'm on the Scottish Fiat forum, as well as the Alfa owners forum (we've a panda 100hp, and an Alfa 3.0 GTV). I work part time for a local tourism association, and we are involved in a project called the "North Coast 500", which is a 500 mile road trip around the North and West of the Scottish Highlands.

The support for the project has really been very enthusiastic, and we feel that this has the potential to become a "must see and do" activity when folk are visiting up here. I drove the route myself a month or so back, and it's a fantastic combination of culture, coastal and mountain scenery, and mercifully quiet roads where you can actually appreciate what is around you!

The launch is planned for May 9th 2015, and will be part of the Inverness Classic Vehicle day - the entire city centre is given over to classic vehicles, from Vintage all the way through to one or two from the "00"s - I have my own in regularly as well and it's a really good day for everybody, with loads of people walking around looking at the cars. We have agreed with the organisers that we can have a space allocated to us on the prime site , and they will assist with publicity etc. The obvious tie up for this is of course the Fiat 500. So, what we would like to do is:

Try and get a half dozen Fiat 500's (the originals - not the new ones!) to appear there on the day
The following morning, the Fiat 500's depart Inverness to cover the actual NC500 themselves. This should take an estimated three days (to be discussed!).
We would like them to do this in a sort of "ambassadorial" function - just talking to folk about how good a journey it is etc - and we will try and arrange media and local interest along the way

Now, it's unreasonable for us to expect the club to assist promote our project unless we can make this attractive to the owners / drivers of the cars! Therefore:

We can look at offering to cover 4 nights accommodation for up to 6 cars. I think this would be one night in Inverness, and three en route around
To cover any possible incidents / accidents, especially if we are asking them to do the route in an official capacity, we will provide accompanying support vehicle that had local contact details / garage services and so on.
All along the route, there are photo opportunities, local community newspapers, local radio + I'd think that Visit Scotland might be interested in helping with photographic input etc. Good PR opportunity for all involved?

I think that's the gist of it so far - like I say, the details would have to be looked at. We're a voluntary association ourselves, but we do have support for this proposal.

Question: Is it reasonable to pursue this idea, or should we perhaps better focus on a mix of classic cars? Having had experience years ago of a Fiat 126, I know they are not ideal long distance runners, and I'm not even sure there would be six in Scotland anyway! So, before Christmas sets in, I wonder if you could give me your thoughts on this?

Your assistance greatly appreciated - thanks in advance.
Douglas Gibson
 
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