There are some disadvantages for apartments with spectacular views on the Cote d’Azur. Getting to them is not necessarily easy. The place I was staying in Eze is beautiful but to get there you have to reverse up a pebbly path from a hairpin so tight that a car cannot make the turn.
Last night we finished off GP+ after the Grand Prix and I was back in Eze by about 11pm. I spent the next three hours doing all the other work that needs doing before a day on the road.
The goal was to be on the road by eight, so as to get back to Paris by seven in the evening. So after four hours of welcome sleep, we were off…
Well, at least until we got to the end of the track and found Fiat 500 jammed across the hairpin, deserted and stuck between a rock and a hard place (quite literally). There was an irate neighbour who wanted to go to work, and some gendarmes, who had been called to try to figure out what had happened. It was not that hard. It was a hire car with a note in English saying: “Sorry, had an accident”. But no phone number…
In the end we found Simon from Manchester in a nearby villa and, having failed to move the wedged machine, a garagiste was called and we all settled back to wait for a truck to come and drag the offending vehicle away. Simon had watched the Grand Prix from up on the rocks below the palace and had then scuttled off to have a pizza when it bucketed with rain five minutes after the race ended. He was (not surprisingly, given the irate locals) rather subdued and was grumbling about his wife’s ability to park!
So, here we sit, waiting to get on the road. But, hey, (as I said to him) we’re on the Cote d’Azur, the sun is shining and we are not in an office somewhere in the Midlands. Life isn’t so bad. OK, we’ll get home late, but then that’s not unusual…
Nothing that a Handbrake turn can’t solve, especially in that Fiat
Thank you for the shout out… enjoy your journey
Chris… in an office… in the midlands…
Joe, I always love the optimistic approach you have when things aren´t going your way. Glad to see you´re are enjoying life.
That is brilliant! One of the best off the cuff stories I have read all weekend.
1. Use the handbrake to get round that. It would definately work.
2. To move the car, lift the back up as it is the lightest end and pivot around the front tyres. It’s only a fiat 500.
3. stay another day!
Isn’t the engine in the back?
The engine IS at the rear of original 500′s but not these new ones… it’s just a Punto with a bodykit.
Think I’ll use this story as given to add a couple more days to our hols nest month. Thanx Joe.
For some reason the mental image of you translating the note for the gendarmes, while wishing to disassociate yourself via body language with any sympathy for your compatriot, immensely amusing…
Could you not just pick up a corner and bump around it a bit, that’s the good thing about small cars.
How heavy is the Fiat? – A few burly blokes could probably move that without a tow truck
You needed a bunch of F1 mechanics like the ones who used to put parked Minis up on four chairs outside the Tip Top bar – on the run down from Casino Square – and watch joyfully when the owners returned …
Another prank was to unbolt a length of Armco and use it to channel water into the door of the snooty nightclub next door … a litle-known part of the history of Lotus, now I come to think of it.
it usually takes about three average sized men to moved a car like this sideways. can be wrong, but that’s how we did it with Suzuki Swift. This one can’t be that heavier…
Three did try… (I’m not small and the gendarme was a big guy too…). But it needed to be lifted an turned at the same time. The garagiste struggled to do it with lifting gear. I got a text this afternoon saying it cost 580 Euros…
French prices for the English!
It was almost a national holiday yesterday…
ouch! that guy indeed had an accident
For a design brief that must have had massive limitations – due to packaging so much stuff into such a small space – and a requirement to keep the cute persona of the original, I think the designer of the Fiat 500 has done an amazing job.
The 500 is adorable, but it’s not small. I’m old enough to remember people grabbing old 500′s by the bumpers and bouncing them into parking spaces, but the old 500 was nearly 2 feet shorter, more than a foot narrower, 6 inches lower and a shade over half the weight. Next time you walk past some 1970′s houses with built-in garages, look at all the cars parked outside – they don’t fit!
Do you know about the armor plated V8 versions they had in the 70s, when the aristocracy were getting hit with bombs by various “fascicisti” movements?
A new use for a Fiat when it inevitably breaks down; a gate. Also, Joe, (I’m probably jumping on your next story) what do you think about the new RB controversy; the holes in the floor? I’ve already got a name for them. We already have F-ducts, how about A-holes?
parking his car on a tight bend, blocking the road and inconveniencing others?
must be a schumacher fan.
Excellent! Best post to date.
+1
lol
Ten points.
Brilliant ! Near Monaco too !
Looks about as easy to pass that 500 as it is to pass an F1 car at Monaco! Hope you get home soon, in the meantime, what are your thoughts on what was a remarkably dull race? For my mind, even though everyone knows how hard it is to overtake at Monaco, I was surprised it was so bad this year. I guess the fact that all the cars are so similar in performance this year negated the drop-off effect of the tyres. The fact the tyres seemed able to do half a race distance without experiencing the drop-off was a surprise and served to make things worse.
So the question is, what for next year? Even more aggressive tyre drop-offs for this race? DRS in the tunnel as the chicane is the only feasible overtaking spot. Abandon this race entirely (it can become the Isle of Man TT of car racing, prestigious but not championship – I know this wouldn’t happen)?
Priceless entertainment!
why did you not just pull it out of the way. It only weighs 2 stone wet through On the other hand i can see the ( think of worse places to be stuck approach ) looks nice
.
We tried.
I love the mood captured here. It’s made me really miss Europe.
The “Schumacher Park” is tipped to be the new drifting.
Great little story but, come on Joe…… how did the garagiste move it in the end? We need to know these things!
My first effort would have been to sling a rope under the rear end somewhere and drag it sideways. Minimal damage for maximum movement.
Joe, when I saw your pic of the view from your apartment last week I thought – - – ‘well he’s got that right’. But then I just had to read the first line of this post to burst out laughing. Don’t know why, just seemed the right thing to do !
It’s these things that make life fun, and your sentiments are spot on.
‘Look,its the cote’, its sunny and we haven’t got a deadline – - – - -today ! Breakfast then Lunch I think’.
When I lived in Italy I worked for the Fiat Group – all the makes including Ferrari, Lancia, Abarth etc. the lot. Lots of pressure, lots of travel and regular 18 hour days, 6 days a week. Deadlines were daily and it eventually really got on my t – ts.
Having said that, no matter how sh- – -y the upcoming day, how little sleep I’d had and not knowing when I’d next be back home, as I left the house at my regular 5-30AM, when the sun was up and the sky clear blue, a pause on the balcony to look at the 270 degree Alps view from my apartment never failed to make me pause, look, breathe in the already warm scented air (lots of woods round the house), to make me feel f – -k it, nothing much wrong with this life.
That lasted about 10 seconds before reality set in.
25 years later I realised above all else it was those 10 seconds that really made me happy, and they cost – - – nothing !
Well, that and F1 – - – which costs a sodding fortune !
They had deadlines before Marchionne?
forgot the
Certainly that view is cracking, especially on a clear day. Turin is one of those cities I love and hate… Small, packed with lovely architecture, close to the mountains, not far from the sea. But then there is also lots of poverty, dodgy characters trying to clean windows at traffic lights, endless dumped Mark I Ducato campers and other crap cluttering sides of main roads. But even after catching the early morning Ryanair cattle flight, and having my head pounded with adverts for whisky at barely 6 something in the morning, that view over the alps before landing at Caselle is quite something. Love Superga at sun rise too – driving up there in a nice open top car and overlooking the city whilst it awakes is quite something.
PS – As we used to say in Turin, ‘you never park a car in Italy, you just abandon it’.
Great to see Simon’s got the gist. (France as far as Cannes still counted as Italy !)
I’m assuming that the brakes slipped and the car just rolled down and plopped into place. If that’s not the case, and it was parked – - – - ‘nice wedging!’.
I noticed that in Torino, cars quite lierally left anywhere from the middle of a fast traffic flow to the pavement. I did enjoy driving over there, it was always comptetitive and parking never a problem.
In Minnesota, this type of problem is generally resolved, very quickly, with a pickup truck and a logging chain. It’s frustrating not to have the right tools when you need them!
Nice of you to try to cheer him up!
Nicely parked! No worries about it rolling away.
one question: how??????? we should make it the next top gear challenge. can YOu get a Fiat 500 stuck like this? takes talent that!
Who is the real culprit? Can’t have been Flav or VJ cos they’d still be wedged in the Fiat. Ah!… must have been the infamous Monaco parker.
Hi Joe
Let us know when you finally get home, and what time.
Thanks
23.00
welcome back Joe, promise to work on getting you a helo lift for next year!
I was staring at the pic for too long, and ended up thinking, nah, just dismantle it
Glad it all worked out.
Thanks Joe. That’s about the most interesting bit of driving that came out of Monaco this weekend…
This why you should always keep a good ‘ol floor jack in your car…
(just kidding)
Even with a jack this one would have been difficult because there was no flat ground. We did have a look at that…
Sort of story DSJ would have had in Motor Sport as a sojourn in a country lane… You know the bit after the race report
And whilst we’re on the topic of unbelievable situations…
Surely this story is a MotorSport leg-pull?
Sir JYS was instrumental in grafting Kimi Raikkonen into the Renault-Lotus.
The most unlikely partnership since Charles Rolls met Fred Royce.
Has Jackie learned Finnish, because the only Scotch Kimi understands comes in tumblers.
Can you imagine the Driver-Coach chatter coming through his headset during a GP?
This is another Roebuck wind-up… isn’t it Joe?
Joe, is that a Prius I see?
Yep
We might all be driving a Prius soon . . 3rd biggest seller worldwide, effect Japan switching off their N plants and incentives given. More on this if the subject comes up. There’s a lot of major inter-connexions hooking up just now. Either that, or a penny or two just dropped with me.
A journo on CAR magazine ran a Prius as a long-term test car last year. On his commute he was getting about 40 mpg, whereas his previous motor, a BMW 320d, was getting closer to 60.
Having pulled higher 20MPG in a 7 liter V8, talking empty road drives at night, pure cruise mode, mind you, I am tempted to believe. The problem is, when there’s less oil. In the same motor, gunned around town, possibly illegally, lent to a friend, who had to pay me several thousand for remedial works, I think more like 1MPG was realistic. Driving style matters a lot.
OT, by luck we saw you on Sky Sports F1 and thought the segment about William Grover-Williams was fantastic.Surely there’s a documentary waiting to be made here..?! The book’s on order from Amazon as I type
A proper movie, one still hopes. But boy, with the complexity of that Sabs (which I have off the shelf for a re-read) will it need some script – wrangling.
Joe, if you get another bite at that, you simply must watch The Kremlin Letter. That one beats just about any major production for plot complexity. Tanked despite a unbelievable cast and great acting. Funnily enough, it’s best box office was in France.
I, too, saw you on SKY’s coverage. It was a good interview.
Is it true that Simon Lazenby’s mouth is exactly the same size as his foot?
I did not take a close look at either.
Which show was this on? I’m currently on holiday so had to resort to BBC for race (their race commentary is boring this year as although Edwards, Coulthard and Anderson are no doubt clever people I would choose to spend a night in the pub with them). Anyway I have recorded some bits of the weekend as backup so would be nice to catch Joe’s interview on my return.
Have a safe drive back and don’t stop at roadside toilets near Paris. Also, don’t stop at any roadside toilets.
You guys don’t have any of those little trolley wheel inserts that we have here in Australia to move our white goods like fridges, stoves, dishwashers and Fiat 500′s around easily inside the house or garage?
All the F1 teams use similar things to rotate cars, especially at Monaco, ironically…Joe could have nipped down and borrowed one, but D’oh…there’s a Fiat in the way…
What a great vignette of the race and your stay. Made me smile as did all the civilized replies!
580 euros, he should have found about 3 blokes given them 20 euros each and lifted the back of the car round, it doesn’t look much bigger than a mini.