A couple more hairpins sit exposed in what
looks like a vast wild meadow before the road scores a long line into the
landscape and allows a sustained blast through the gears as you continue to climb.
Spectacular though it is, the best is yet to come. As you crest the first ridge
you feel like you're on top of the world (particularly with the roof down now
it's stopped raining) because, unlike the Transfagarasan, there are no peaks
above you. Instead your gaze is held by a huge valley that's gradually
revealing itself, the road appearing far below before snaking over to the
mountain opposite and then up to the summit in the distance.
As
with the bonnet vents, these wing vents are for appearance only
To get across there, we first have to point
the bonnet left and run along possibly the scariest section of road I've ever
driven. Balanced precariously along a ridge, the land simply falls away either
side, leaving you feeling terrifyingly exposed, like a tightrope artist. In an
F-type. What's worse is that you're heading downhill towards a hairpin with
nothing beyond it. I don't usually have a problem with heights but I'll happily
admit that my stomach disappears and my legs feel horribly hollow as I glance
over the edge and see nothing for hundreds of feet below. I wouldn't have felt
much different if I'd clambered up onto the wall of the dam yesterday. Acid in
the gusts whipping across and it feels like you could topple off the perch at
any second. At least Dean only wants me to drive back and forth along it half a
dozen times...
The
engine note cycles through a rumble, roar and scream as the speed rises
Exposure aside, the road is blindingly good
to drive because visibility is excellent, traffic is sparse and there's a
brilliant mixture of fast and slow comers ranging over the valleys that it
roller-coasters in and out of. Constant elevation change is another nice
feature because it means you're not just on a continual descent or climb; there
are bits of ducking and diving to liven things up. We realise we could shoot
enough epic landscapes to fill the whole magazine but we simply run out of
time-and very nearly fuel.
Thankfully, as the 67C hits the 655 in
Novaci there is a small fuel station where we brim the Jaguar as dusk falls,
before embarking on a giddy strop back to Pitesti that involves a lot of
overtaking and (in places) some fairly big speeds. It's a journey I don't think
you'd have in much of the rest of Europe these days, but it's a bit wilder here
somehow. I like it and it suits the Jag too. The V6 S remains the technically
better F-type, but there is something wonderfully mad about the V8 that is
deeply appealing and fits an epic journey like this perfectly. If nothing else,
the magnitude of the landscapes deserves a magnificent soundtrack and that's
something the V8's quad exhausts certainly provide.
The
F gets a deployable spoiler to reduce lift at speed. It pops up at 60mph and
stays up until speed falls below 40mph
And the roads? Well, it turns out there's a
lot more to the Transfagarasan highway than the famous 4.2 miles you can see in
the photo here. About 50 miles more in face. And that's just the good bits.
However, although rumour has it that Nicolae Ceausescu built the Transfagarasan
specifically to outshine the Transalpina, the latter is now not only the
highest but also, by a whisker, the most spectacular road in Romania. And
possibly the world.
