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12th October 2006
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Page 48, 12th October 2006 — GOOD
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TRANS 1

A round trip of nearly 1,000 miles across Europe left the CM team with a new found respect for the award-winning Ford

Transit. Colin Barnett reports. Around the time we knew the Ford Transit had won the International Van of the Year award, the team due to produce the CM webcast at the IAA Show asked if some of their gear, too big for hand luggage and too valuable for the hold, could be taken to Hanover by road.

A couple of calls to Ford's press office asking fora van to go to Germany saw the promise of a Transit 130 crewcab. A little more cheek from us saw the loan extended long enough to carry out the test on the previous pages.

All aboard

At 10.30arn on the eve of the show's press day, the Transit left CM'S Sutton, Surrey HQ loaded with photographic equipment and all the luggage other members of the team didn't trust to Heathrow's baggage handlers. Our faithful old elasticated net held everything in place, despite the crewcab's loadspace providing only two tie-down rings on the floor. Had we had much larger packages, the sidemounted load rails could have been brought into play with the appropriate adaptors.

Setting up our portable sat-nay was easy, thanks to the 12V power supply in the driver's side dash-top locker, although a specific cut-out in the lid for cable passage would he preferable to hoping not to chop off the power:111e heated windscreen also meant we had to use the external antenna we'd remembered to pack. The worst part of the journey followed as we had to collect our stills photographer from Beckenham before heading to Folkestone and the ghostly human-free experience that is now checking in for Eurotunnel. Although we had a flexible ticket guaranteeing travel on the next train, crossings were down to one an hour — and, naturally, the last one had just gone.

A revision of our plan to head into Belgium for a late lunch saw a couple of bags of Burger King's finest join us on board before we passed through a nearly deserted passport control.

Unfortunately, the British security post was less deserted, with a dozen or so head office suits watching the bored staff do nothing. We got the full treatnaent,right down to X-raying the editor-in-chiefs deodorant, Handling the burgers and drinks was easy thanks to the fold-out table on top of the dash. One important point arose on the return journey — cupholder holes are too big for a McDonald's coffee cup, a major oversight.

Once on foreign soil, some carefully planned roadworks saw us heading at full tilt towards Boulogne until we could make the necessary U-turn towards Belgium, Holland and Germany, finally leaving the Calais environs at 3pm local time. We'd set a rough target of 51/2 hours for the 400 miles from Calais to Hanover, but the later-than-planned departure made making a dinner date look doubtful.

The first two countries passed uneventfully, with progress at the local speed limit being possible most of the way. But things slowed down significantly on the two-lane Dutch motorway, as we frequently encountered one truck using its lkm/h advantage to pass another.

Germany proved even worse as seemingly every bit of Autobahn in the north-west was under repair. with great chunks of contraflow. But about 100 miles from our destination the roads cleared, and the Transit had a chance to make serious progress. We can vouch that it is as safe and steady at 100mph as it is at 70mph, although the wipers suffer from serious vibration over 90mph.We finally arrived at the hotel at Hanover airport at 8.45pm,just as the coach to the dinner was leaving. a

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