100HP's done 27000 miles now after two month/4000 mile trip to Italy. While there we took a friend to hospital - trip of 110 miles each way - on the return trip we were on the worst main road I've ever been on, even by today's Italian standards. For the last hour or more the suspension was subjected to continuous large-scale movements on the serious ripples that lorries hammer into the roads, especially on the right-hand-side of the right-hand lane - imagine the roughest road in the UK but for 80-plus miles. Towards the end of the journey the suspension felt distinctly odd - to the extent that I stopped to check for a soft tyre - all has been well since, including the 1200-mile return journey back to Pudding Island with 100-plus litres of wine, plus olive oil, plus luggage and two people. Is it possible that I'd experienced damper fade? That's the only explanation I can think of.

By the way, the Sportac 3s were exemplary on the way back to the UK - there was torrential rain and standing water all the way from central Italy to Belgium - of all places, where it usually starts to pee down - and the Vredesteins were first rate.

Only saw one other 100HP on whole trip. Lots of 500s around now, including numerous Abarths - though they only sell half as many as Pandas - but very few on the autostrade, they're obviously thought of a a city car, though we did see four French-registered Abarth esse-esse obviously travelling together in Luxembourg.

Sod damper fade, I want to know about your trip, how long it took, what your mpg was, which route you took,how many tanks of fuel you used, what mountain passes you used,please please. I love reading these tails of mad driving expeditions.

Okehampton April 17 06.15 speedo 22,900 to Channel Tunnel 10.16/23,161, - refuel at Folkestone - 11.20 crossing - France 13.00 (after shifting clock on an hour) - Lille 13.55/23,231 - Mons 14.49/23,278 - refuel in Luxembourg 16.44/23,418 - stop overnight at Remotel, Knutange 17.10/23,442 - leave 9.30; Epinal 10.54/23,536 - Basel 13.01/23625 - through San Gottardo tunnel - Airolo 15.35/23,746 - stop at Albergo Girasole; start 9.06 - join A1 at Milano 10.53/23,844 - Parma 11.52/23,918 - Bologna 12.32/23,971 - Firenze (after lunch break) 13.54/24,024 - Val di Chiana 14.48/24,088 - Orte exit from A1 15.43/24,154 - home at Valdarena (near Spoleto) April 19 16.15/24,183.

Did a couple of thousand miles in eight weeks or so while in Italy, including several trips between Spoleto and Senigallia to ferry friend to and from hospital along one of the worst stretches of road I've ever encountered. Our friend had recently had a serious operation and I was concerned about her comfort on that road in the 100HP but she has a (pre-Panda/500) Ford Ka and remarked that the 100HP was more comfortable. As ever, climate control was a boon, not just for comfort and to reduce fatigue but also to keep the windows demisted in tropical downpours, I just leave it, and Sport mode, on all the time.

Return (sooner than planned as mother in hospital) - Valdarena 8 June 08.14/26,265 - Perugia (slightly different route to get to A1) 09.25/26,313 - join A1 at Val di Chiana 09.56/26,346 - Firenze 10.53/26,411 - Bologna (horrendous rain on crossing of Appenines) 11.45/26,464 - Parma (after lunch stop and refuel) 13.04/26,516 - left A1 at Milano 14.08/26,590 - toll 25.30 euros plus 2.60 plus 1.40 on Milano annulare - Airolo 15.45/26,692 - through tunnel - Stop at Gasthaus Paxmontana Sachseln, near Locarno - lovely spot, small room, good food, but expensive - 9 June Basel 10.30/26,830 refuel at Basel - over Ballon d'Alsace, single carriageway road - Epinal 12.24/26,914 - Metz 13.31/26,992 - Luxembourg (lunch and refuel) 14.09/27,032 - Mons 16.53/27,173 - Lille 17.34/27,220 - stop at Aux 3 Arcades, Bourbourg, very reasonable, friendly, good value; 10 June refuel near Tunnel 08.45/27,280 - 09.20 train - Maidstone 09.23 (gained an hour)/27,323 - Leatherhead 10.01/27,365. Then diverted from direct route back to Devon to visit mother in Ashford (Middx) Hospital.

Averaged 40.something mpg for entire trip, helped by warm/hot weather in Italy and speed restricted by traffic and horrible weather for most of return trip.

Well you did ask. Just for fun I've run a spreadsheet on these trips for years - entering start times/mileages/average speeds/stops and letting the program give me target times at various checkpoints. I always book our overnight stops ahead of time as we used to waste time and patience looking for somewhere to stop, which inevitably meant starting to look before you really wanted to break the journey. The 100HP is really happier at 90-95 than at 80-85 but traffic can be an issue; also the stretch in France between crossing the border at Basel and getting to Luxembourg is now heavily populated with radar checks - they're all sign posted ahead and you'd have to be a prat to get caught but they do cut your average speed. The 100HP can do legs of 300-320 miles between refills if you don't do over 90 for too far, but this can be as little as 250 if you get the opportunity to push it. You need to get an annual motorway tessera/pass/ticket for the Swiss autoroutes - sticks to inside of screen and costs (I think) 35 euros - not supposed to be transferable between vehicles but it can be peeled off screen with care and moved. Our rote avoids all tolls otherwise until getting to Milano. Petrol prices similar to UK or slightly less in most places but (as far as I remember) only about £1.20 per litre in Luxembourg.

I asked,I got. Thankyou. I thought that I was rather thorough writing stats after some of my journeys abroad, but yours is excellent, well done. How does yours handle at speed I find it I wind it right up to 90-100 the engine is screaming, also I don't think these cars every visited a wind tunnel in there development either.

Did you stop at the last petrol station before the border in Luxembourg, I used to stop there most days, the meatballs and mashed potatoes where my favourite dinner. When I go to Frankfurt for the motorshow later this year I will deviate and have my meat balls again.

Continental roads seem to suffer more from transverse waves and ridges than those in the UK and any car with a shortish wheelbase is going to pitch on these - the 100HP is no exception but I think one of the answers is to trust the car to sort it out - severe bumps on high-speed bends very rarely call for any steering correction though it is tempting to do so. The gearing is relatively short and I certainly wouldn't make any mods that increase noise levels but I don't have any sense of the engine screaming - the benefit of being at the peak of the torque curve at 90-100 is so pronounced that the car is in its element. Even with the load we bring back I rarely find the need to drop to fifth except below, say, 60 mph on a noticeable upward slope, unless traffic conditions call for snappier acceleration, in which case fourth is the best bet. Brakes are very reassuring (later servo) even with a heavy car.

The range per tank could be a concern - just for the sake of it, I like to get to Luxembourg - and the furthest filling station - with an almost empty tank as fuel is cheaper (years ago, before the motorway went right through Lux there was a Street of a Thousand Filling Stations with Luxembourg on one side of the road, with cheap petrol - and fags if interested - and Belgium on the other) and that is marginal if you need to press on going north through Alsace and Lorraine - which can happen as some of this stretch - which is actually Route 66 - is still single carriageway and you can be seriously held up by lorries, which are not supposed to use this road but do so with apparent impunity, and the need to catch up in those stretches with no cameras can push up consumption. There's a stretch of road near Epinal with no petrol stations for tens of miles that can be a buttock clincher if you've not planned for it.

I think the outside mirrors - the smaller, earlier shape on mine - generate a good deal of the wind noise but, again, I don't think this is too bad for a small, cheap car.

On the whole I've been impressed by the 100HP on long runs - remembering that the days are long gone when I'd get in a car and drive for sixteen hours and Mrs b-u and I spell each other - given favourable conditions it would do 95-plus all day without knackering the driver.

The small tank does annoy me,i px'd a espace with a 83 litre tank so I was quite spoilt.

Going slower helped as well, road works on m25&m1, when I went to auto italia last week I did over 300 miles on a tank, quite impressed.

Yes, you probably experienced damper fade. Dampers on rally cars can fade so dampers on a roadcar on a rough road certainly can.

Sounds like it had a bit of a pounding, shock mount at the next MOT? I like the way the tarmac cracks up over here and just rattles as you go over it.

It would have been interesting to see 1 rear shock felt significantly warmer than the other but its a definate possibility that the temperature would have altered the behaviour of the damper.

I drove down 2 weeks ago (not in a Panda) and this time had an overnight stop in Lux. Filling up and getting breakfast and then snacks in that last station was a nightmare as everyone was doing the same.
Waiting for about 10 people to buy about 100000000 cigarettes just to get a few chocolate bars and bottles of water was frustrating.
The money saved on my 68litres made me feel slightly happier.

The Dutch seem to be particularly addicted to filling up to the last minute drop in Luxembourg.

The car's first MOT is due at the beginning of October - there are no clunks but we'll see.

By the way, in taking our friend to hospital in Senigallia a couple of times she introduced us to an amazing little local fish restaurant right on the beach just south of Senigallia - stunning sea food straight out of the sea and very reasonable.

Any other exiting trips that you've noted.

gtidriver said:

Any other exiting trips that you've noted.

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I don't really think too much about this journey now - we've been doing it twice a year since the late 1980s in a variety of cars - Alfasuds, Mirafiori Sport, tweaked Ritmo Abarth 130TC, heavily tweaked Uno turbo ie (we occasionally went across the Rhine at Strasbourg and went down the autobahn in this - still remember doing 120 or so and watching the Mercs and BMWs approaching fast in the mirror - I suppose that's exciting), Tipo Tds, Lancia Thema (coming back in late April we found that Switzerland was shut because of snow and had to find a hotel late at night in the hinterland between Milan and Turin), (early) Panda 4x4, Cinquecento, Seicento, Panda Multijet, Panda 100HP.

We've changed the schedule umpteen times - in the early days the Sally Line did an overnight service from Ramsgate - you left at about 11 and slept on the boat, which docked at Dunkirk till, I think, 7 the next morning so that you could set off refreshed, early, and sur le Continent - great shame that's not viable any more. On one really rough return trip we were heaving (!!) sighs of relief that we should be back in Ramsgate when the skipper announced that it was too rough to get into harbour so we stooged up and down the Channel for another six hours - it was so rough that our son (who, I should note was only fpur or five at the time!) had to be held on the loo to stop him being thrown off it. (I suppose that's exciting.) Tried hovercraft - hellishly uncomfortable in anything but a flat calm. The tunnel is very useful and we use it once in a while but I still prefer a ferry.

Although I take the journey for granted in some ways, I still enjoy it - partly because I loathe flying and all the airport crap that surrounds it, and partly because you're aware of travelling when you drive, rather than just switching off in one place and coming back to life in another. We've also had some great overnight stops and meals on the way - and some real bummers as well.

We expect to come back to Devon from Umbria in the autumn via Berlin in Mrs b-u's Panda 1.2 so that will make a change.

The roads have changed a fair bit in places - Luxembourg has motor way all the way through now rather than single-carriageway lined with petrol stations; the dual carriageway in the Epinal to Mulhouse stretch has gradually been creeping southwards but there's still a 20-30 mile bit of single carriageway going through all the little towns on the upper reaches of the Moselle - these have incredible patisseries, by the way, fabulous variety of bread and pastries - savoury quiches (of course in Lorraine), fruit tarts, and so on.