Keeping warm in an open car with no heater?

You can't beat a fleece-lined flying jacket, and scarf to cover the mouth. Add a woolly hat and some gloves (it's amazing how quickly the hands get cold!) and you'll be ok, but you'll look like a survivor from the 1950s :-) As for rain, just keep moving...

(My friend had a Morgan 3-wheeler which didn't run to a top, we went every- where in it, summer and winter.)

I can't see a problem with a full-face lid myself. They're fine on the bike, so should be fine in an open car.

From the OP, it would appear that said car only has a deflector / flyscreen arrangement.

I'd go with the full-face and a snood underneath it.

snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) realised it was Wed, 11 Oct 2006

22:00:34 +0100 and decided it was time to write:

Come on, it would look ridiculously whimpish in an open car, unless it has no windscreen.

Real old cars usually produced enough heat from the engine compartment to keep your lower half warm, but whether this goes for replicas in general and this one in particular I wouldn't know.

Gentleman or not, don't bother with the hood, wear a warm waterproof jacket and also waterproof trousers - bucket seats are called that for a reason. Some swear by a towel around the neck to stop water ingress. Gloves of course - it helps if they are made of something suitable for wiping the back of the windscreen, it saves driving with a chammy leather clutched in the jaws. Something to keep the ears warm is a good idea, but a full face helmet is tending towards overkill, apart from being a darned nuisance when you are not actually using it. A lot depends on the windscreen though, it's really a matter of suck it and see.

Should be fun though.

Ron Robinson

SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

You're a big girl's blouse.

If I can drive a Lohr or a Mehari (screen-folded) with goggles (at best), the OP can drive a Morgan rep without a full-face helmet.

In the weather we've been having recently, I'd go with the lid until I was in warmer / less wet parts of Europe.

Mike P ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Throw the roof as far as you can. Use the storage space for clean underwear.

I've got (somewhere) a two-layer East German army tank suit. It's

*WONDERFUL*. One layer alone is plenty warm enough in a North Yorkshire forest in October.

The helmet option will just make people point and laugh, and won't actually do much to keep you properly warm that a proper hat with earflaps won't. It will also cut down your peripheral vision and situational awareness massively.

My best tip? Wait until summer...

SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

To be honest, I'd just wait eight months.

But you're still a big girl's blouse.

Fine on a bike because there's no sensible alternative. But would you regard your perception of the world as improved or impaired by the helmet?

Pah! Sensible, more like.

Rain hurts at even moderate speeds.

12v heated suit, I forget where mine came from, might be from a supplier for cold storage places, heated gloves too from any motorbike shop.

Mrcheerful

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The route through Basel is faster, and you can do that as Calais/ Reims/ Metz/ Colmar/ Basel/ Como/ Milano/ Bologna/ Ancona. You have to pay for a vignette to transit Switzerland but generally you save slightly on the tolls. Also by taking a route via Luxembourg and Switzerland you can take advantage of cheap fuel which you can't do if the route is all within France/Italy. The climb up the Alps is also less challenging on this route than the road up to Mont Blanc.

The views when driving via Mont Blanc are stunning, and it's even better if you go as far as Lyon and take the Frejus tunnel.

If you do MB, pay attention to the speed restrictions and to the no tailgating rule. I've seen several Brits get pulled there for infraction of the rules. If you're running at normal cruising speeds, it takes a day to get to Mont Blanc and there is a good selection of hotels for a nights stay

- steak at the Ibis up there is s**te BTW. Then it's another 7-8 hours to get to Ancona.

If you do manage to get a bit further on on Day 1, I can recommend the Hotel Radar at Ivrea. I've been staying there since the 1980s. It need some decoration in the hallways but the rooms are spacious, comfortable and reasonably priced and the restaurant is excellent. They also hold he restaurant open late knowing a lot of people will descend from Monte Bianco, needing food and drink and a place to sleep.

Improved, 'cos it stops me flinching every time there's rain / grit / stones flying around.....

Here's a hint, there's nowhere warmer/less wet on that route. It will be driving in cloud on the drive up Mont Blanc, probably pissing it down in Aosta, because I've never been in Aosta at that time of year and had a dry day. And then the rain should pretty much keep up all the way to Ancona.

The last time I did Ivrea in October there were floods all the way to Bologna, including on the motorway. It took over six hours to get to Bologna from Ivrea because of the conditions.

BTW, I knew it was getting bad when a bright red amphibious vehicle marked "Vigili" passed me just outside Milan. When we got into Bologna I heard that the hotel we had stayed at near Ispra had been flooded on the ground floor. It was on a small hill, and the entire city centre of Ispra was underwater.

Slow down young man.

In which case, it's full-face lid all the way, then. IMHO.

Wuss, I don't wear a lid when driving my tractor 12 hours a day in that weather.

I have a feeling your tractor will be a tad slower.