131mirafiori forum

Time to start this year's "3MA as it happens" thread  :)

Ineptitude fuelling up:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/3ma2013-001.jpg)

Heading out to the highway:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/3ma2013-002.jpg)

Crossing the Bavarian border:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/3ma2013-003.jpg)

The Beauty and the Beast en route to Munich:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/3ma2013-004.jpg)

To be continued!  :)

Looking good Robert!  8)

My update is that the Abarth has been given a very quick internal valet and all 'pre-flight' checks have been carried out - water, oil, petrol, tyre pressures, etc., so should be good to go at 04.45h  :o tomorrow. Currently going through my limited wardrobe and selecting the clothes that actually still fit me  ::) (Diet starts when I get back from 3MA! ;D).

Kev131 set out from Limerick at the crack of dawn this morning and crossed the Irish Sea to Wales sometime between 09.00h and 11.00h.

Theo and Jason have both been packing during the day - well actually, apparently Lynn has done Jason and Aston's ;D - but plan is for Kev, Theo, Jason and I to meet at the Port of Dover around 06.45h in the morning, for an 08.00h ferry to France.

Getting excited now.... ;D 8)

Checked into the Premier inn Dover and waiting for my dinner table at 8.30pm.

763 Kms today and I still feel fresh as a daisy...although I might not smell as fresh as one! ;D Roads a bit damp until Tiperary but bone dry from then on...which means no car washing tonight. ;D

The car ran like clockwork so I'm very pleased to have invested so much time parts and labour over the winter. Let's hope that continues.....for everyone! ;D

Now to sample a chilled pint of Stella..... :)

Enjoy it all this year.

Greetings from Ela, Eliana & Albert

As the  song goes ?Im so excited ? and suffering a nervious b****m its mad like  first day of school  lol

Only 30 minutes left  :)

Just waiting for Gisela, Werner and Norbert ...

Theo Simon Jason and I met at 6.45 in Dover and spent an hour kicking tyres and catching up since last year.

We've also now had our full English breakfast on board the DFDS ferry and we're just discussing the optimal route to our overnight stay near the Nurburgring...which we hope to sample in the evening. :)

Should be about 4 hours from Dunkirk.

Team UK (plus Irishman taking the photo  ;)) on the ferry  ;D

Just a quick view how 3ma13 started for "Team Knauber":
Sending Jan's and Ren?'s 132 into exile to have place for Holger's and Ren?'s Mirafioris - pics of the latter impossible due to HEAVY rain (why do I wash my car at all ???)
Looking forward,
Greetings,
Ren

What an experience the 'ring was. The quality of the machinery was top class with some serious dudes playing with their toys.

At least half of the cars were rent a ring race cars with the rest being anything from a hired Qashqai driven by a nervous Chineese couple to a pair of fire breathing Corvettes and Nissan GTrs. Most were German registered but some cars from UK, France, Holland, etc and two BMW E30 cabrios.....from Russia!

The speed differential with some of the cars was immense so you drive with one eye permanently on the mirror. We were lucky that the circuit was relatively quiet and dry but supercars still blow you away with regularity. After a spin as a passenger in Simon's Abarth (which incidentally is a fantastic track car) and where my respect for Simon's driving ability went up another notch I decided not to drive my rather soft Super and instead went around again with Theo's Sport. The diffence in the handling between the two cars is striking and I wonder how much of a sales success the Sport would have been with the Abarth's rear independant suspension!!! :o It must be one of the best kept secrets out there but Simon's stayed flat and planted four square at rediculously high speeds - 4 wheel discs are also a worthwhile upgrade!!!!

Great start to our motoring holiday and tomorrow we'll have a later breakfast with a more leisurely drive south. Yesterday we passed by Spa Francochamps and with more time we would have stopped for a look. Five countries yesterday and the countryside has really improved now that we are in the Eifel. :)

It must be the start of 3ma, first rain of the trip and half a tree on the paintwork.

Beauty & Beast are the first to arrive in Miesbach. Weather is typical 3MA  ;)

Shoudl I ask which one is the 'Beauty' and which one the 'Beast'  8)

Wish I was there. Maybe next years event. And your road book is cool. Looks fantastic although I don't suppose thats Ingrid in her tennis gear inside the first few pages?

Take care everyone, have a good trip and keep posing and posting updates.

Rich :-)

Loving the updates guys....so wish I was there with you all.  Hope you all have a wonderful time. 

Jacquie
xxxx

I braved the ring , in the soggy beast , was such a crack as chiken kev would say lol, feels we guys start the 3ma crack 2 days ago as soon as we joined the ferry  fist group dinner finished in hotel

Ha! It takes balls to trust your life to someone else Jay!!! Anyway, you only had the guts to do it once!!  ;D

Twelve cars here tonight and without any per-arrangement most participants arrived within an hour of each other. Heini had his customary case of beer on hand for complimentary car park drinks (thanks buddy)....and wait till you see pics of the Heini surprise...a real beauty. :)

Thank You for the day to day updates, your trip is being observed worldwide.  I wish I was there with you all.  Have a safe and fun adventure at 3MA13. Please keep the updates coming.  Mike Stinson

I finally got descent internet connection but all seems to have been reported. Team UK+Ireland arrived safely in Miesbach. For me it was 820 miles or just over 1300km over two days. And other than very frequent refuelling stops there were no other problems. And driving the Nurburgring twice yesterday was a great bonus and a good pre-start to 3ma13. And tomorrow morning the real things starts!

Here's some pictures of the journey.
 

some more pictures  ;)

and some photos at the Nurburgring  with included blatant 3ma advertising with all the screen stickers  ;D

Well we had our first touring day which compromised of a lakeside coffee stop mid morning, a mountain top village offering panoramic views of the Bavarian countryside and a visit to an abbey where we had a Bavarian late lunch. All interspersed with scenic touring through beautiful rural settings where nature was just waking up for summer.

The road surfaces and open visibility allowed some spirited driving on occasions and all 13 cars made the day long trip without incident. :)
I'm sure Theo can load up some pics later.

He BETTER  ;D

reminds me of my own HUMP...


(http://i.imgur.com/Gm0WegC.jpg)


The Hunchkack of Miesbach. The road Tolls the Tolls made me deaf.

Ok, ok .... here they are  ;D

Starting off with Simon praying to the Abarth to make sure his clutch bearing lasts the day  ;D ;D ;D ;D

Some more

Vonder bra as they'd say in Germany.

Looks like you had 12 or 13 in the convoy?
And with good weather and empty roads, what more could a Mirafiori ask for.

Enjoy the rest of the trip.

A good day's driving with great company and cars, a couple of photo's from yesterday.

Some more photos from from today.

.

Loving the pics, weather looks great too! Guessing Heini's surprise is the series 1. Looks nice.

the pictures are brilliant, thanks guys - keep 'em coming  ;)

Some more photos from today  ;)

and more

nice pictures, enjoy it!

The weather wasn't kind to us today with rain all day. But we still had lots of 3ma fun so here's some wet photos from today:

all looks to be going fantasticly, im gutted i cant be there, but work commitments have scuppered me again, imbecieles keep buying new MINIs so i have to prepare them.. im coming to turin next year (even if i have to quit), we might even bring ERL 900V, but some fireworks need lighting under some arses!!!

Turin next year :o
please please please pick the right dates!
Heres my availability. ;)

24.04.14  to 07.05.14
19.06.14  to 02.07.14

3MA 2013 looking good, congratulations to the organiser's a profesional job by the looks of it, continue to enjoy.

Steve

Reporting this from the dinner table having just finished the final 3ma13 dinner which means 3ma13 is officially over. Now it's time for exchanging pictures and having a social evening before we all set off for home tomorrow; a long trip for some of us. Everyone here joins me in saying a huge thank you to Ingrid and Robert for their superb organisation of 3ma13 and for putting in so much effort to make sure everything was just perfect for us to enjoy.

A big thank u to Robert n Ingrid for a great 3ma13

One of ...if not the best 3MA from an organisational perspective.

While the weather was out of our control, it was obvious from the start to finish that a lot of thought and preparation went into this year's event. Big thanks to Robert and Ingrid... :)

Next year will be in Italy some time in May and don't forget about the special 40th anniversary Malin to Mizen Mirafiori event in Ireland in September. It looks like there is a lot of interest in this from the attendees in Bavaria. :)

A couple of photo's from today

Simon and myself happy at the chance to spend more money at the fuel station.

All 3MA2013 participants are on their way home now, carrying a trunk full of memories (hopefully) and looking forward to 2014  ;)

We (Ingrid and Robert) sincerely hope you had as much fun participating in this year's event as we had in organizing it! I was particularly happy with organizing saturday's Special Stage  ;D and the prize giving ceremony in the evening. Again my special congratulations to our Oberland Trophy Champion, Ernst Knauber with his navigator Jan, Norbert and his navigator Heini who finished 2nd overall, and last but not least my good friend Simon who brought the first cup back to England since 1966 by finishing 3rd overall (doing it all by himself, without a navigator!!). Not to forget all other teams or single drivers who had much fun finding their way and the route controls on narrow single-lane "roads" and mastering two time controls expertly. See some pictures from the Special Stage:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/stage01.jpg)

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/stage02.jpg)

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/stage03.jpg)

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/stage04.jpg)

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/stage05.jpg)

And here are some more pictures from the prize giving ceremony, showing the winners and their prizes:

The cups waiting for the three winners:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/11-cups.jpg)

The results are computed:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/10-results.jpg)

Here goes! 10th place: Holger

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/10-holger.jpg)

9th place: Jason and his son Aston

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/09-jason.jpg)

8th place: Phil and Tansy

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/08-phil.jpg)

7th place: Kevin

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/07-kevin.jpg)

6th place: Ren?

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/06-rene.jpg)

5th place: Theo

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/05-theo.jpg)

4th place: Werner and Gisela

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/04-gisela.jpg)

3rd place: Simon

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/03-simon.jpg)

2nd place: Norbert and Heini

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/02-Heini.jpg)

1st place and winners of the Oberland Trophy: Ernst and his son Jan

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/01-champion.jpg)

Smiling faces all over - the winning teams:

(http://www.oelprinz-online.de/images/fiatforum/00-winners.jpg)

Thanks again to all participants for coming to Bavaria - hope to see you again soon!

Robert & Ingrid

looks to have been a great week some lovely pics

Looks like you all had a fantastic time, and up until a fortnight ago I was planning to come as a passenger :). Even had the Easy Jet flights from Manchester to Munich earmarked.

However, with work commitments and the fact that we are off to Frejus in the South of France (Driving) for 2 and a half weeks on the 25th of May meant that something had to give :-\.

Unfortunately it was 3MA. :'(

Hopefully next year :D ;D.

Team Knauber arrived back home well today.
A safe return for everbody still on their way !

As already mentioned above:
THANK YOU INGRID and ROBERT for the  SUPERB ORGANIZING of this GREAT EVENT !!
And also many thanks to all the other attendees making these four days a real pleasure!
We're sorry for all that couldn't attend; maybe next year...

Ernst / Ren? / Jan

.

..

Great pictures, enjoy the nice memories guys, hope to see you all soon

Norbert and Heini arrived after 950 Km day trip. Men and machines did very well  ;D

About 3000 Km x 2 cars = 6000 Km in 6 days without troubles except of the stop light switch  8)

On our way from Miesbach to the north we collected a door for Norbert`s project.

We delivered it to Norbert`s garage and took our last 3ma beer...  8) ;D  We promise  ::)

A big THANK YOU to Ingrid and Robert. Excellent orginazation and we had a wonderful week with all our friends  :)

Well ive just got in 1200km in 16 hrs , safe journoy to everyone......

and many thanks to Goldy for 2200miles (3400km )  trouble free miles in 6 days  ;D ;D ;D

Got home about 11.20pm after a mammoth 1250 km trip home. The clutch on the Abarth managed to remain intact so the whole event went without a mechanical hitch for me. ;D

Great to see our 3MA buddies again - I wish we lived closer to each other and could meet more than once a year  ;)

Thanks again to Robert and Ingrid - a superb event, extremely well organised and planned. 8)

See you all again at 3MA14  ;D

I too got home around 11:20 pm last night. A total of 2220 miles or 3573km of trouble free fun  ;D

After a quick cup of tea last night I had to unpack, empty the car,  repack and get up at 4:30 am to fly to Denmark for the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden  ;) :D ;D Jut got to the hotel in Copenhagen and writing this on my phone  :D

My thanks again to Ingrid and Robert for their excellent work. I'm already looking forward to 3ma14 but for the next week is different kind of fun for me  ;D Must get ready to go to Malmo shortly for the first semi-final dress rehearsal ;)

3MA13 went on a lot longer for me as I just got in the door at 8.45pm....tonight...after a total of 4438 kms in 8 days. I hope I never have to undertake a journey like I did yesterday and today again ....1798 kms since 7.30am yesterday morning...in a 131!

Still....I'm not feeling too bad and it's a testament to the car design and in my view having the optimum 3MA 131...ie a S3 2000TC. I must say that I've finally bonded with the car. I haven't used it much since bringing it back from Zurich last July and I had some trepidations about the journey. Aside from a rumbling front wheel bearing which was replaced during the event (thanks for the spare part Phil) the car performed faultlessly and seemed to improve where engine performance was concerned. Probably, it just needed a good workout...which it certainly got.  :)

Thanks again to Robert & Ingrid - The whole event ran seamlessly which is evidence of the massive preparations put in. Well done.... :)

Got home at 7 o'clock this morning having completed 2053 miles.  Unfortunately can't make the trouble free claim having had the cooling fan fail, the handbrake cable torn asunder and a windscreen wiper blade that split at both ends in the pouring rain on the journey back but at least nothing that couldn't be solved with a few cable ties. ;D

We would like to add our thanks to Robert and Ingrid for a fantastic 3MA, as well as Rene for his patience and superb translation skills (who knows what we would have ended up eating or doing otherwise!), Heini and Norbert for the famous mobile bar  8) and everyone else, including our good friend Vasco, for the excellent company.

Special thanks Ingrid and Robert you did very nice meeting ! I'm still sorry that we left last day of meeting and goes to Monza in Italy, but we saw an exciting wet race in Monza !
we arrived today evening 3pm at home !
we need drive via Danmark and Sweden because ferry is fully ! all trip only one problem that idle running disappeared near Stockholm, but we drive home without idle running !
we trip have 5600km....
i hope we look yet some 3ma

-janne- and mr. BMW

5600 Km, You and Eero are my 3ma13 heroes  ;) :o ;)
I can`t believe Eero still wants BMW after this distance  ;D

Do not even imagine how much I regret not having participated in the meeting, also for the extraordinary company that you are.
Disappointed and distressed to remedy my subconscious I had to opt for a meeting of sunshine Alfaromeo and I went with an Alfetta GTV gr.2, but certainly I would have enjoyed much more with the dear and beloved 131  :-\

Wow,,,,, a  gold 132   , some day I will get 1 ;)

Great to see a lovely selection  fiat 131s ,from what I can make out some returned good mpg  to ,,,, they look a credit to all of you  ;)

One for the insiders  ;D 8)

The problem with the always missing bottle opener is solved; a bottle opener with magnet  ;D

To be tested at 3ma14  ::)

Ok so if the Peroni is to maintain this new 3MA tradition of beer drinking tyre kicking pic taking car park dwelling Mirafiori fans next year .....we are depending on Norbert or Werner.

Well that's ok as the lads seem committed for next 10 years at least!! ;D

To respond to Ivor's comment about MPG, when the three amigos and Jason were traveling together on the homeward cannonball run, we regularly compared how many litres of petrol each car consumed as they were all brimmed at each fuel stop.

I can remember one comparison which was 27 litres for Jason, 30 each for Simon and I and Theo was the "winner" with 36!!!  ;D

I will try to convince both, but this is my boot lid  ;)

Ah yes. I did not see the "special" accessory on the rear window! :)

Lovely pictures and happy faces:-)  nice to see. Congratulations to the organizers!

I"m sad i couldnt attend ,although so close to the place, just about 500 kms. I had a busy time moving my two  131s and stuff from my ex work to a new place as i got fired right before the start of 3ma. But luckily a nice place to store my cars and to work on them bring me to next 3ma.

Happy everybody enjoyed

So where are the 1000's of photos everyone took and swoped hard drives with  ??? ??? ??? ???

Sitting on hard drives I reckon Jay!!  ;D

I'm having problems with photobucket ...otherwise I'd post a few. :)

Today, the postman delivered my speeding ticket issued during Mountain Day, just before lunch break  >:(. However, the ?10 fine is really little compared to the fun we had  ;D

I wonder who else besides my good friend Simon and me got zapped? (I'm pretty sure no speeding tickets will be mailed to the UK, btw)

We definitely set the camera off & we were only three cars from the end at the time, lets hope the computer can't read English addresses ;D



My photos are sitting on my hard drive waiting to be sorted but here's one for you Jas whilst you're waiting ;D ;D An Englishman on holiday ??? ???

 

10 euros is a bargin ,compared to what he british speed camera's dish out ,( 70 euro's minimum ) :-[
 

that beautiful spot in the mountains , but the lake was like ice water .. :o :o :o

I finally got around to sorting my 3ma photo's, if you want to have a look click on the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pactdixon/sets/72157634150461909/

or the slide show:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pactdixon/sets/72157634150461909/show/with/9055002803/

Still no speeding ticket - I think I got away with it 8)

More super photo's  phil .. 8) see u next week phil .

 A brilliant BBC german week ,  cars , food and living  like mr average ..
 remmember the pork nuckels aston and simon had  ;D

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03866cj/Das_Auto_The_Germans_Their_Cars_and_Us/ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03866cj/Das_Auto_The_Germans_Their_Cars_and_Us/)


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03864gh/Rick_Steins_German_Bite/ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03864gh/Rick_Steins_German_Bite/)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b038669g/Make_Me_a_German/ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b038669g/Make_Me_a_German/)
 

 i think  ill get a transfer to munich  :)