Hi there
Well this time round, the Mustang had no break down, no oil cooler leak, so the reserve car (M3) was not required.
Original plan was to set off around 10:30am and meet my mate Andy at services just past Peak District, but my other buddy Mac had a last minute wheel bearing failure so had to go to a scrap yard full of exotics like Porsches, Ferrari's and luckily there was a pair of Mustangs in their. A couple of hundred notes later he had a complete hub including bearing. Then off to a garage to get the hub/bearing fitted.
As such we did not set off until 17:00 Thursday, SATNAV was saying it was take us 5hrs to make the 300+ mile trip to Dunkeld, as such we believed we would have it done and dusted in 4hr with some pretty rapid motorway moving.
So a quick stop for some Vpower:
We then began our journey which did not start well, once on the M6 and out of the road works we met pretty bad traffic and did around 3 miles in 30 minutes. Luckily we got moving and once we were past Peak District traffic eased and once in Scotland we were moving along.
We made another Vpower stop knowing Vpower would become pretty hard to get hold off once in Scotland and we'd be having to settle for regular 95/97 fuels. My mates son Connor grabbed a lovely rolling shot of mine:
Then we were off, traffic was pretty good, but we hit some nasty weather in the last 50 miles of our trip making visibility poor, but in the end we got there for 22:45, so in time for a few whiskies, and get some sleep for the night.
Also even with traffic and not exactly hanging around, honestly I never went over 71mph officer, but the Mustang returned an impressive 27mpg door to door on the run up there:
Not the 30+ others typically see but I am putting that down to the M6 being a car park and then once out of traffic we did not hang around as we wanted to get there before the bar closed.
Up the next day, we checked out the Royal Hotel Dunkeld:
We set off for a photoshoot at Ski centre and then off to Inverness along an interesting route including the old Military Road:
Dunkeld, north A93 through Braemar (say hello to the Queen), left onto the A97, left onto A944, right onto A939, right onto A95 (The Whisky trail), left A941 (To Elgin), left A96 (Forres), left A940 (Dava), right A939 (Nairn), left A96 to Inverness.
Absolutely superb roads, only complaint the road has a lot of stones/chippings on it, so keep some distance between cars.
Was great fun blasting down the single track roads, at one point a truck was in front of us, it clearly had no limiter, his average speed down the twisty single track roads was 70+, great for us as we all just chased him down, not so great for the odd car coming the opposite direction when they were faced by a truck approaching at high speed and ten Pony's all in pursuit, but was one of those sights you have to see to believe.
We arrived at the Travel Lodge Inverness after several hours of driving and the weather turned wet again, which we were fine with as it was time to park up, take a rest and then off for evening dinner and some boozing time.
Was a wet start from Inverness but weather we booked in advance came true, the skies turned blue and the roads dried out, time for a great bit of hooning to Skye and the route we took was:
Inverness, B862 (Fort Augustus), right A82 (Invermoriston), left A887, right A87 (Kyle of Lochalsh onto Skye), left A851 to Armadale, ferry to Mallaig. Before the ferry, a skoot around Skye, for those that have never been (awesome place). Stay in Glenfinan
A huge layby we took a ten minute stop in:
Skye is a beautiful place and was an ideal time to do a photoshoot with our very dirty cars, but even dirty Mustangs still are a sight to see, we promptly took over a car park and made it our own.
We then grabbed a bite to eat at a beautiful place (photo above), chilled and then went for a hooning / blasting down to the ferry in Mallaig and oh my what an absolute road, easily capable of taking the car off the speedo on certain stretches, again I never exceeded 71mph. But a truly awesome very fast road with a race track like surface.
Queuing waiting to get on the ferry, I cheekily let Mac go first knowing his car was a low as mine if not a touch lower, so he was the guinea pig. Several other Mustangs went on the ferry before us (also lowered) without issue. Then it was Mac's turn and the ferry man, gave a thumbs down and to wait, we were like oh poo poo.
Then we could feel the ramp adjusting, a few minutes later a thumbs up and both myself and Mac rolled on the ferry without issue, parked up and went up top deck for a drink.
Some photos from Mallaig:
Once of the ferry, we then blasted our way to the Princes Hotel in Glenfinnan and stop by the beach:
Beautiful wild beach, lovely single track roads with great visibility, extremely tight so never really much out of 2/3rd gear, but still a lot of fun powering out of tight corners.
Then arrived at the Princes Hotel where we had a great meal and all got very drunken.
The following day we were all feeling a bit hungover, worse for wear, so we did not set off until around 11am to A830 to Fort William (one of the MOST awesome roads I've ever driven), A82 (South Ballachulish), right A828 (Connel Bridge), right A85 (Oban), A816 south to junction of B844 (takes you to The Bridge Over The Atlantic), back to the A816, south to Lochgilphead, left A83 to Inveraray.
Amazing roads, incredible scenery, but not so many photos unfortunately, we also cancelled our last night due to so many of the locals from our group going home. As such we decided against just a handful of us staying in the hotel and decided to blast home with some stops along the way:
Then this beauty and a GT3 RS came along:
The AMG GTR driver then pulled along side Macs car and gave my buddy Mac the look as to say haha your toy is a cheap American piece of junk that is no match for my 200k AMG GTR.
The next thing I see if the AMG's nose go in the air as it clearly kicked down to pass my mate, well Mac was having none of that, lets just say one very embarrassed AMG driver from that point refused to overtake myself or Mac and him and his GT3 RS buddy stayed behind us both and got off at the next services. No doubt to have a chat over coffee about how a cheapo Mustang just totally embarrassed them and had to explain to his Mrs how he obviously missed a few gears in his auto box.
Just like the year before it was an absolutely amazing trip, never at any point did our big cars feel to big for the roads, as the single track roads are that, so even smaller cars are too big for them and have to use passing points.
The handling in the dry was superb, in the wet areas we just took our time, well some did not, but all survived and the cars did us proud and as the class GT would suggest, we all travelled in comfort.
Makes me want to go do it again in the M3 and then next Summer hopefully in my new 2018 Orange Fury Mustang to see how it compared with the 10 speed auto. But the whole trip the Mustang returned 22mpg average which is not bad because we were all blasting and around 28mpg on the motorway trips. The M3 in comparison average 28mpg for the whole trip and around 35mpg on the motorway journeys.
All I can say is if no one has ever done this trip, do it! Old Military road, NC500, Apple Cross, the Lochs, Fort William, Mallaig the views and the roads are out of this world. Even better the roads are absolutely superb, like race tracks some of them. Also the locals are very obliging and when you catch them up on single track roads either put their foots downs or they move over and let you all pass.
Thoroughly enjoyed and cannot wait to do it again.
Total miles covered was 1168 miles.
P.S. Shoutout goes to Emma, Blake and Anthony for taking some of the photos which I have used in my post, as some of the others from our group post up photos/videos I shall add them to this thread.
Well this time round, the Mustang had no break down, no oil cooler leak, so the reserve car (M3) was not required.
Original plan was to set off around 10:30am and meet my mate Andy at services just past Peak District, but my other buddy Mac had a last minute wheel bearing failure so had to go to a scrap yard full of exotics like Porsches, Ferrari's and luckily there was a pair of Mustangs in their. A couple of hundred notes later he had a complete hub including bearing. Then off to a garage to get the hub/bearing fitted.
As such we did not set off until 17:00 Thursday, SATNAV was saying it was take us 5hrs to make the 300+ mile trip to Dunkeld, as such we believed we would have it done and dusted in 4hr with some pretty rapid motorway moving.
So a quick stop for some Vpower:
We then began our journey which did not start well, once on the M6 and out of the road works we met pretty bad traffic and did around 3 miles in 30 minutes. Luckily we got moving and once we were past Peak District traffic eased and once in Scotland we were moving along.
We made another Vpower stop knowing Vpower would become pretty hard to get hold off once in Scotland and we'd be having to settle for regular 95/97 fuels. My mates son Connor grabbed a lovely rolling shot of mine:
Then we were off, traffic was pretty good, but we hit some nasty weather in the last 50 miles of our trip making visibility poor, but in the end we got there for 22:45, so in time for a few whiskies, and get some sleep for the night.
Also even with traffic and not exactly hanging around, honestly I never went over 71mph officer, but the Mustang returned an impressive 27mpg door to door on the run up there:
Not the 30+ others typically see but I am putting that down to the M6 being a car park and then once out of traffic we did not hang around as we wanted to get there before the bar closed.
Up the next day, we checked out the Royal Hotel Dunkeld:
We set off for a photoshoot at Ski centre and then off to Inverness along an interesting route including the old Military Road:
Dunkeld, north A93 through Braemar (say hello to the Queen), left onto the A97, left onto A944, right onto A939, right onto A95 (The Whisky trail), left A941 (To Elgin), left A96 (Forres), left A940 (Dava), right A939 (Nairn), left A96 to Inverness.
Absolutely superb roads, only complaint the road has a lot of stones/chippings on it, so keep some distance between cars.
Was great fun blasting down the single track roads, at one point a truck was in front of us, it clearly had no limiter, his average speed down the twisty single track roads was 70+, great for us as we all just chased him down, not so great for the odd car coming the opposite direction when they were faced by a truck approaching at high speed and ten Pony's all in pursuit, but was one of those sights you have to see to believe.
We arrived at the Travel Lodge Inverness after several hours of driving and the weather turned wet again, which we were fine with as it was time to park up, take a rest and then off for evening dinner and some boozing time.
Was a wet start from Inverness but weather we booked in advance came true, the skies turned blue and the roads dried out, time for a great bit of hooning to Skye and the route we took was:
Inverness, B862 (Fort Augustus), right A82 (Invermoriston), left A887, right A87 (Kyle of Lochalsh onto Skye), left A851 to Armadale, ferry to Mallaig. Before the ferry, a skoot around Skye, for those that have never been (awesome place). Stay in Glenfinan
A huge layby we took a ten minute stop in:
Skye is a beautiful place and was an ideal time to do a photoshoot with our very dirty cars, but even dirty Mustangs still are a sight to see, we promptly took over a car park and made it our own.
We then grabbed a bite to eat at a beautiful place (photo above), chilled and then went for a hooning / blasting down to the ferry in Mallaig and oh my what an absolute road, easily capable of taking the car off the speedo on certain stretches, again I never exceeded 71mph. But a truly awesome very fast road with a race track like surface.
Queuing waiting to get on the ferry, I cheekily let Mac go first knowing his car was a low as mine if not a touch lower, so he was the guinea pig. Several other Mustangs went on the ferry before us (also lowered) without issue. Then it was Mac's turn and the ferry man, gave a thumbs down and to wait, we were like oh poo poo.
Then we could feel the ramp adjusting, a few minutes later a thumbs up and both myself and Mac rolled on the ferry without issue, parked up and went up top deck for a drink.
Some photos from Mallaig:
Once of the ferry, we then blasted our way to the Princes Hotel in Glenfinnan and stop by the beach:
Beautiful wild beach, lovely single track roads with great visibility, extremely tight so never really much out of 2/3rd gear, but still a lot of fun powering out of tight corners.
Then arrived at the Princes Hotel where we had a great meal and all got very drunken.
The following day we were all feeling a bit hungover, worse for wear, so we did not set off until around 11am to A830 to Fort William (one of the MOST awesome roads I've ever driven), A82 (South Ballachulish), right A828 (Connel Bridge), right A85 (Oban), A816 south to junction of B844 (takes you to The Bridge Over The Atlantic), back to the A816, south to Lochgilphead, left A83 to Inveraray.
Amazing roads, incredible scenery, but not so many photos unfortunately, we also cancelled our last night due to so many of the locals from our group going home. As such we decided against just a handful of us staying in the hotel and decided to blast home with some stops along the way:
Then this beauty and a GT3 RS came along:
The AMG GTR driver then pulled along side Macs car and gave my buddy Mac the look as to say haha your toy is a cheap American piece of junk that is no match for my 200k AMG GTR.
The next thing I see if the AMG's nose go in the air as it clearly kicked down to pass my mate, well Mac was having none of that, lets just say one very embarrassed AMG driver from that point refused to overtake myself or Mac and him and his GT3 RS buddy stayed behind us both and got off at the next services. No doubt to have a chat over coffee about how a cheapo Mustang just totally embarrassed them and had to explain to his Mrs how he obviously missed a few gears in his auto box.
Just like the year before it was an absolutely amazing trip, never at any point did our big cars feel to big for the roads, as the single track roads are that, so even smaller cars are too big for them and have to use passing points.
The handling in the dry was superb, in the wet areas we just took our time, well some did not, but all survived and the cars did us proud and as the class GT would suggest, we all travelled in comfort.
Makes me want to go do it again in the M3 and then next Summer hopefully in my new 2018 Orange Fury Mustang to see how it compared with the 10 speed auto. But the whole trip the Mustang returned 22mpg average which is not bad because we were all blasting and around 28mpg on the motorway trips. The M3 in comparison average 28mpg for the whole trip and around 35mpg on the motorway journeys.
All I can say is if no one has ever done this trip, do it! Old Military road, NC500, Apple Cross, the Lochs, Fort William, Mallaig the views and the roads are out of this world. Even better the roads are absolutely superb, like race tracks some of them. Also the locals are very obliging and when you catch them up on single track roads either put their foots downs or they move over and let you all pass.
Thoroughly enjoyed and cannot wait to do it again.
Total miles covered was 1168 miles.
P.S. Shoutout goes to Emma, Blake and Anthony for taking some of the photos which I have used in my post, as some of the others from our group post up photos/videos I shall add them to this thread.
Last edited:
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
![[ui]ICEMAN](/styles/overclockers/avatars/5.png){kind=avatar}
