3ma 2009 - Dates announced

[Thotos]

3ma-2009

Thursday 28th May to Sunday 31st May 2009

[effe131]

ok for the date? I have already contacted Fiat that will allow I hope us to use the track of mirafiori, now an other important step and the choice dell' hotel and here to Turin c' it is some are several inagurati with the Olympic Games? an other question is which zones of Turin of the Piemonte would want to visit? salutes effe131/michele

[Thotos]

Details will probably best be discussed off the forum until we have a good plan in place but my rough idea of itinerary is as follows:

Thursday 28th May: Driving activities with possible visit to museum, stately home (Palace) or design house etc. It would be nice to visit Bertone as they were responsible for the Abarth or the Fiat Research Centre in Orbassano. Or maybe just a long drive (head for the mountains?) in the Piedmont region with a good long lunch stop; the Hunting lodge of the Racconigi Royal Castle serves a great lunch!

Friday 29th May: This day should see us having a tour of the Mirafiori factory and hopefully drive the test track. After lunch we could visit the Mirafiori village and spend some money; preferably on the smaller items for sale and not buy a new car! It would be great to arrange a photo shoot of all the 131s and all of us under the "mirafiori" sign.

Saturday 30th May: This will be our static display day where we'll hopefully get permission to use the Piazza San Carlo to show our 131s to everyone.

Sunday 31st May: Another driving day. A lot of places will be shut on Sunday so we won't be able to visit them so Sunday will be the "driving" day. Maybe a drive to Laggo Maggiore for a waterfront lunch is achievable in a day. I had a daytrip from Turin to Laggo Maggiore and back in 1983 in my 1600S 131 and I can confirm is achievable in a day. But I was a lot younger in 1983...

Now when it comes to hotel choice we have a lot to consider. For the last two 3ma meetings we chose a hotel package that was priced per person and included dinner, bed and breakfast. That way we didn't have to worry about where to arrange dinner every night and we didn't have a variation in prices for single and double rooms. The formula worked well and while I would say it's not important to have the per-person pricing, it is important to have inclusive dinners. What is very important in the hotel choice is of course parking! There must be sufficient parking for all the 131s and it would be good if we can arrange reserved parking for our cars. Reserved parking is something we had in Ireland but not in Scotland.

I know the hotel you mention (which was built for the winter Olympics) and while I believe it to be an excellent 4* hotel I also believe that it may be too expensive. We don't want to sacrifice comfort for price but we don't want the hotel to be so expensive that will stop people from joining us. 3ma09 will be an expensive trip for a lot of us when you consider the rising cost of fuel and subsequent rise in ferry prices so we need to be very shrewd in our negotiations with the hotels.

[kev131]

3MA09 dates announced??? Fantastico, fabulouso!!! 

I must go away on holiday more often and leave it to the real decision makers!

Sounds like a great itinerary Theo - Is the next main decision the entry and exit points betwen France & Italy - hopefully including some spectacular Alpine passes  - Different in and out routes..!

By the way we were up Mount Etna 2 days ago and that is a road to take a 131 up-down! Well surfaced open hairpins by the bucketload!! Ill post up pics soon. 

[eugene]

Kev,mind your hair in the HOT ASH .Eugene

[mclements131]

hi guys still looking for the 131 sport for the 131ma  any one knows where thers one please let me know cash waiting for right car rhd please  runing out of time

[brensport]

Hi Mclements131,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?I was down with Mark Williams a couple of weekends ago, To my surprise his 131 sport is still there. This is a very solid shell, needing restoration but it's a fantastic base to make a solid car. Origanally this car was silver and it would be nice to put it back this colour again.
You can contact Mark Directly on this forum. Here is a picture of his car:

[theredx19]

Was down with Brensport looking at the car and she is a very good car for a restoration very solid for a 131 it looks well in the KILKENNY colours Mark 

[Thotos]

I must go away on holiday more often and leave it to the real decision makers!

You are not getting out of getting your share of the blame if the dates are wrong that easily Kev!

Sounds like a great itinerary Theo - Is the next main decision the entry and exit points betwen France & Italy

The "itinerary" is just a suggestion with nothing arranged yet so I'd say the next thing to concentrate on is getting this suggestion to be a real itinerary. effe131/Michelle has already contacted Fiat so we'll have to wait and see what they say. Same goes with Piazza San Carlo which effe131 believes he can arrange for us. If we can't get to use it for our static display we'll have to come up with 'Plan B'.

As far as the next major decision goes, I think we need to decide on a suitable hotel before we decide how we'll get there or even get back but spectacular Alpine passes is something we should certainly have in our routes.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank effe131/Michelle for all his help and support in organising 3ma09 in Turin.

[effe131]

I would want to carry to you to visit, while you are in my beautifulst region, rinomate zones like monferrato (in province of asti) and the langhe (in cuneo province) I would be moreover interesting to organize of the escapes also for the museum egizio (the second after that one de the cairo), palace madama (recently reopened), the antonelliana size with the museum of the cinema and then an escape for the reggia of real venaria and to the park of the mandria? could go to you well?
effe131/michele

[Thotos]

Hello Michelle,

Your suggestions sound very nice but don't forget we only have four days in Turin and two of those days will be taken up by our visit to the Fiat factory and Mirafiori village and our day at the Piazza San Carlo. Your wonderful suggestions will require a lot more time than the few days we'll have.  Of course during our static display day at the Piazza San Carlo (or wherever we have it in Turin) the wives, girlfriends, other passengers or even 3maers will have the opportunity to visit the Egyptian Museum, the Museum of Cinema or other places of interest within Turin.

There's a Fiat test track within the Mandria park which would be nice to drive it if we cannot get to drive the test track at the Mirafiori factory. There are also some great driving roads in Monferrato and this could possibly form part of our Thursday or Sunday driving activities.

[mclements131]

oh thanks mark for the info any chance of the car was the silver ? thanks and will try for the yellow wow

[parrish]

Theo the dates look good for me.
Ive registered my intention to come along, just need to get the car running and road legal.
As for travelling plans? im hoping to leave from the UK (car is still in Spain at the moment) has anyone any approx idea of the journey times UK - Italy?
regards
Steve

[eugene]

That depends on how fast you are going to drive there .Eugene

[Thotos]

 has anyone any approx idea of the journey times UK - Italy?

Hello Steve. It's good to hear you intend to join us for 3ma09 in Turin.

Regarding the driving, I've driven to Turin several times over the years, first time in 1983 in my 131S 1600. Back when I was young(er!) I used to drive the whole distance in one day. It's a bit of a long drive but easily done. When I drove to Turin for the Lancia Centenary celebrations in 2006 (www.gammaconsortium.com/LTIM) ?we split the driving over two days and had an overnight stay in Bourg-en-Bresse in France which is about 440 miles from Calais and 220 miles from Turin. That allowed us to arrive in Turin early afternoon. The other people in 'my' convoy also had an overnight stay in Calais as they started much further north in the UK than I did. I simply had an early start from Enfield, used the Eurotunnel and was in Calais to meet the rest at 7:30am for the start. For the return trip we reversed the distances and had our overnight stay in Troyes which is 420 miles out of Turin and 240 miles from Calais.

We have not yet decided on places for overnight stays during the 3ma09 even though we have discussed this. The Irish guys will be coming from further west than the UK convoy and the Dutch, Belgian, German etc convoys possibly slightly further east than us so possibly the single overnight stay and meeting point for all the convoys will be somewhere near Dijon which is the half way point from Calais to Turin.