We've just taken the Panda out on it's first rally style test. A bit like a pre-Mongol Rally Shakedown. It's been thundering and raining most of the afternoon out here, and the back roads are strewn with mud, water and fallen bits of tree. Rich knows an awesome stretch of road from his house to The Peacock. It's about 2.4 miles each way so we took it in turns to blast the Panda along twisty paths that don't seem wide enough for anything bigger than our little Fiat. Low lying mist meant we had to use our full range of lighting options. OK so we were only going about 50mph but the scale of the car and roads more than made up for it. As an added bonus our newly wired stereo gives off a whining jet engine style feedback that raises in pitch with the speed of the engine. Together with the new air filter and the wailing off-road tyres it sounded almost like a proper rally car. Now all we have to do is work out how to make the exhaust backfire and pop as we slow down to swing round corners.
If driving in this country can be shown to be so much fun I can't wait to hit the roads in Mongolia.