Full Throttle in Italy

It’s about five degrees outside and having finally found reliable internet after almost a week, it’s nice to sit back and write this update.

In the past few days we’ve driven Spain’s GTA Spano, the first media outlet offered a drive, plus we drove the Veritas RSIII along the same path that James Bond took when he destroyed his Aston Martin DBS (in Quantum of Solace).

We then took two Lamborghinis to Val D’ Aosta in the Italian Alps (where the start of the original Italian Job movie was filmed).

We’ve had a big week by any standards. Having finished with Germany, we caught a plane to Spain to drive the GTA Spano on Valencia’s Moto GP Track.

Anthony has written up an article on the car as a separate piece and you can read that here.

As I mentioned before we left Australia, the car which I was most interested in was the Veritas RSIII. Now this is by no means a normal car; as I like to say, it looks like a big angry fish wrapped in a carbon fibre body. It has to be the coolest and meanest looking car on the planet.

I’ll be honest, it’s a bit of a toy but that’s why I love it so much. It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than pure, exhilarating and terrifying fun.

We were originally meant to drive the Veritas RSIII in Germany but due to a mishap the car was unavailable. Thankfully the people at Veritas went out of their way and trucked the car to us in Italy, all the way from the UK.

We left the Spano and landed in Milano,Italy, and we had to meet the Veritas team in one hour, our Navman was programmed and we headed towards the mountains.

We had all fallen in love with Germany this trip, but our three day stay in Italy was going to change all that.

We took the Veritas to Lake Garda and high up into the mountains in northern Italy. We filmed through the same tunnel and scenery where James Bond destroyed his beautiful Aston Martin DBS in the latest Bond film.

With absolutely spectacular scenery and the world’s coolest looking car, the whole Full Throttle team instantly fell in love with Italy and I fell in love with the Veritas.

No matter where we stopped, the Veritas pulled the biggest crowds, attracted the biggest smiles and almost caused at least six car crashes.

A few times during the trip Porsche drivers followed us till we pulled over so they can admire the car. The Italians love their cars and the Veritas is a car you can’t help but to love.

We finished our film high up in the mountains, enjoyed pizza to die for and headed back down in pitch black in a car that lacks any and all electronic control.

It will be a very, very long time before any of us will forget our time with the Veritas RSIII.

A 45 minute drive down the mountain and we said goodbye to the Veritas and headed to Sant’Agata to pick up the two Lamborghinis.

I have to admit, out of all the cars we were set to drive, the Lamborghinis probably interested me the least. Sure they look good and sure they are Lamborghinis but with the Veritas drive to top from the day before, I wasn’t sure if the Lambos would impress.

It’s quite annoying when you don’t get excited by Lamborghinis anymore. Thankfully that feeling lasted all of 20 seconds before I set foot inside the LP 560-4.

There really is something ultra special about Lamborghinis, they are magical pieces of machinery. Having got out of the Veritas and into the Lamborghinis felt like going from a RyanAir flight into Etihad’s business class. Heaven.

We had a plan, we wanted to go and shoot the opening scene of the original Italian Job movie high up in Val D’ Aosta in the Italian Alps (the scene with the Lamborghini Miura).

None of us thought the scenery could beat that of Lake Garda but Italy is full of surprises.

We drove higher and higher and higher until the road would go no more. The view down and towards the Alps was intoxicating. We all decided that we need to move to Italy.

We drove the Lamborghinis up and down the mountain for our shoot, kilometres and kilometres of bends and twisty road mixed in the world’s best backdrop meant none of us wanted to go home.

We all agreed that we must have died and gone to heaven because if two Lamborghinis in the Italian Alps with no one around is not heaven than we don’t know what is.

Day two ended with a photo shoot in Sant’Agata and followed by the world’s best pizzas at Maggi, one kilometre away from Lamborghini headquarters.

After three days of filming for 16 hours a day, we all made use of the best sleep we’ve had on the trip so far.

Having now arrived in Denmark, Karl directed us down the wrong street out of Copenhagen airport, which meant we drove into Sweden accidentally. No where else in the world can you take a wrong turn and end up in another country!

As I finish writing this, the team is frantically packing as we begin to head back towards Sweden to drive the Koenigsegg.