Day two of the Autodelta ‘European Tour 2005’ kicked off from Basel early yesterday morning, with another long trek looming ahead off us before our next scheduled overnight stop in Modena later that evening. We had already driven from London to Switzerland the previous day, and now more kilometers stretched out ahead of us.

A brief return to B+K Automobile, the newly appointed Swiss Autodelta importer and official Alfa Romeo agent, B+K, for the cars to be checked, preceded a fast run to the Italian border, after a visit to the shores of the beautiful Lake Lucerne. With reports of thick snow blocking the higher mountain passes, our original plans to take the Stelvio Pass were swiftly ditched in favour of taking the St Gotthard tunnel.

The weather was quite overcast as we raced out of Basel, with randomly appearing  heavy showers slowing the convoy’s speed. However, the snow-clad and mist-shrouded mountain peaks, together with the cover of menacing black clouds merely added to the ‘atmosphere’ of adventure.

Lucerne soon came into view, with its picturesque streets lined by tall historic buildings soon giving way to a pleasant drive along the lake's banks. Auto Italia’s Phil Ward had a location in mind for a photoshoot, and after some team discussion as to which surrounding area was best to shoot some film, we were chasing a narrow lane down to the shore. The setting was simply stunning, ice-cold dark waters lapping the shoreline, billiard-table green hills rolling right to the waters, rugged slate-grey mountains pushing into the sky.

Then it was time to press on to Italy, our route taking us down the mountains, sweeping past Lugano, and to the border crossing at Como. The four cars were really flying now, the Swiss roads blurring before us. The new Autodelta 147 GTA AM Super, with four hundred horses now available, ate up the sweeping highway.

Sarin Swami, the car's young owner, another enthusiastic Autodelta customer, comments that the extra power has come with an extra helping of torque.
 

"I wanted a much stiffer suspension set-up, partly to cope with the additional power, and also partly from personal preference, so we ended up changing to a set of fully adjustable shocks with separate reservoirs giving the ability to adjust the rebound and bound settings."

Before we knew it we were in Italy, stopping off for lunch and recalling memorable moments of the jaunt across Switzerland. After lunch the team set off to call past the location of the Vernasco Silver Flag, a legendary Italian hill climb set in stunning historical surroundings. Starting from Castell Arquato, the climb races along a straight and then turns sharply to the left climbing up a series of hairpin bends to the sleepy village of Vernasca. Whereas each Autodelta model on the route presented unique suspension setups (the GT Super having a much more composed ride than the standard Alfa GT, with better body control and less roll), the tight hairpin bends were tackled with at great speeds with considerable ease.

After spending a few hours whizzing up and down the death defying bends, dodging the locals in Ape three-wheelers, the team headed off to their final destination for the day: Modena.

Arriving at this most  evocative of motoring place names at dusk, the team checked into a hotel before enjoying a four-course meal. All along the route interest in the Autodelta cars has been high, and during the evening many historic tales from the performance car making history of this most famous of automotive towns were passionately recounted by locals.