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That sounds like a good idea. I'll be spending most of Friday in Helsinki so I'll find a camping shop then. Carried on to Stockholm yesterday. Decided to forgo the 3.5 hour motorway drive in favour of a 5 hour non motorway drive - which turned out to be 2 hours of non motorway followed by 3 hours of a different motorway. Still a good trade in my eyes! The views were beautiful, although the speed limits too low for any entertaining driving. Once I got to Stockholm, I parked up the car and checked into my hostel. It was nice to have a hot shower after two days sleeping in a tent! Then went and met up with my friends - one originally from Finland and the other from a bit further north in Sweden. In my head it was only 2 or 3 years since I'd seen them, but the reality was more like 8 or 9 when we worked it out! That's one really important point about this car that could be so easily overlooked - it's a fantastic conversation starter, both with old friends and new ones. My housemates lived in my old house for 4 years before I moved in without knowing the neighbour's names properly. Once I started working outside on the car, everyone would stop for little chats here and there, or ask for a little advice if they were having some car trouble. The result was that I got to know them really well, to the point where I know a good chunk of their backgrounds now too! It's so easy these days to live without building these relationships, that's what makes it so fantastic to have something that facilitates them! Anyway, I'm now on the ferry to Finland, where I'll be meeting up with my friend and his mk1 MX5, and the rest of the trip then we'll be doing together. I quickly changed my speedo back to mph this morning to check the mileage reading. 1 week today since the reg plates went on, and the car has covered over 2000 miles and driven in 5 countries (that'll be 6 in about 11 hours time)! That's some pretty decent progress I think!

That was nice of him to bring spares - good man

I guess that's probably what I should have done. I assumed I'd need to do it in the future but foolishly expected that it would be pretty well treated from the outset. Just crossed over into Sweden. Gutted the weather has been so changeable today. Went over one of the bridges towards Copenhagen and it was spectacular. The sun was coming out so I decided to pull over and take a gamble on taking the hood off and setting up the gopro. Then a few minutes down the road I saw a rather unhappy cloud... Before I could get to another exit to get the hood back up, it turned into a very unhappy, hailstoney cloud... I might complain about the hood, but for cases like that it's better up than down! Sadly this meant the hood stayed on for the Øresund bridge so I can only show you the stock Wikipedia photo for it: What a spectacular piece of engineering. 4km tunnel followed by an 8km bridge. The toll booth operators at the car side even offered me a cup of tea when I jumped out of the car to pay them!

Obvious, but I will remark it here. Remember that you will never get more stopping power than locking the wheels. And to be honest, in a westfield you can lock even the stickiest of the slicks with 100% road brakes. So, as Adam says, in a car like this the questions are: How long will they last. (usually forever with decent pads and fluid... even with tiny no vented disks) And how will they feel. And as Adam says... better to have a rock solid pedal with very tiny movement, and locking by applying insane amount of force on them, than displacement with very little force required. Once you get used to it, is easier to modulate a range from 0 to 40kg of force requiered from your leg, than a 0 from 15 kg. (providing that you are fit for this leg workout... but even I can do it with lifetime ankle injures ).

Booked this: https://www.msvtrackdays.com/car/calendar/2019/sept/25-op/ @maurici and @CosKev are there too

As a new owner, I had very similar thoughts on the standard M16 non vented brakes on my Westfield. It seemed to be lacking stopping power Vs my track prepped BMW Mini (or even my barge of a daily). However, I changed my mind last weekend after I had to properly stand on the anchors from speed (legal if course!) due to some old dear not spotting my bright yellow car! The absence of a servo does mean they behave very differently from everyones anesthetised daily car. Whether they'll fade on track I'm yet to find out, but press them hard enough and you can be hanging from the harnesses... 😀

Thought I should probably put an update on here so nobody sends a search party out! Big couple of days finished. Made it to Düsseldorf last night shortly after 9pm. All was well except for the last half hour when I lost all of my Freewheel controls. Not ideal to lose your indicators on the autobahn at night time, but I got there anyway! Turned out just to be a wire that had been trapped by wiper pot cover which was shorting. Tidied that up and modified the routing slightly so all good again today. This morning around 10am I set off for Denmark. Rain was spitting and the clouds looked pretty ominous so I thought it would be best to try out the half hood I bought from SBFS. I think this is probably the first bit I'm not overly impressed by on the car. When I did the fittings in my garage, I remember being disappointed with the fixing at the rear using cable ties. Sure enough, as soon as I tried to tension the roof, the supplied cable tie started slipping, so I had to spend a half an hour getting stuff out of the way in a McDonald's car park to fix that. Even with new cable ties and the roof fully tensioned, though, it leaks. I expected some water to get through gaps around the doors etc. But not through the actual roof seams! Anyway, nothing to be done about it now. Waze reckoned about 6 hours of driving to get to my camping spot for the night in Denmark, but I have no idea what speeds it was anticipating me doing on the unlimited stretches of autobahn. It was pouring down rain for a good chunk of the drive, so having set off at 10 am, with three stops along the way for food, coffee and petrol, I arrived at the camp site around 8:20. Slightly wishing I'd taken a photo when I arrived, but it was very nearly dark and I wanted to use the little remaining light to get my tent set up! I'll take one in the morning though! Tomorrow I'll set off for Sweden. Aiming to be in Stockholm on Wednesday to meet a few friends I haven't seen in years so I'll just drive that general direction and pick a point along the way to pitch a tent tomorrow night! It'll be nice to be off the autobahn. Everything today except the last half hour was autobahn which is not the best for my car - especially with the front wheels toed out. At one point the next instruction on my satnav was to take the exit in 133 miles - to go onto the next autobahn... Exciting stuff. Anyway, photos tomorrow! Time for some rest now!

Alarm set for 4:30 this morning, loaded the car and set off at 5:06. Nicely heavily laden with tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, hiking gear etc. The drive down was cold and noisy, but it didn't stop me smiling like an absolute muppet the whole way! Had to resist the urge to wave at random cars as I passed them a few times! (before anyone worries, the below photo was taken using my phone in a mount, with a timer and the shutter pressed while stationary) The car is absolutely fantastic. I'm so happy with the little changes I made to deviate from the standard car - Freewheel is so good for night driving, being able to switch between dip and main beam mid corner without taking your hands off the wheel. The quantum suspension is just incredible too. I took my friend who drives an M3 for a spin yesterday and he said the Westfield soaks up the bumps better than his car. When I take it on a track too, I can just dial up the damping to wherever I want it. Very glad I asked JK composites to put heater pads in the seats as well. They really make a massive difference and they're so comfortable. A heater in the car would be nice, but wrapped up as I was and with heated seats, I don't see any reason I couldn't drive this car in the middle of winter. When I arrived down at the port, the security guard at checkin directed me into the lane to have my car searched, although I think he did it just to confuse his colleague who was carrying out the searches! "eh... Eh... Can we have a look under the bonnet?". He then proceeded to ask me a few details about the build rather than anything security related! All safely boarded on the ferry now. Car is up to 798 miles now, less than half way through its 4th day with registration plates, although, granted more than half of those miles are from the trip up to Carlisle for the IVA test! I've taken a couple of pictures but the WiFi on the ferry is pants and there's no signal in my cabin so I'll have to edit those into the post later tonight when I get to Düsseldorf! Edit: managed to upload them eventually!

So you want to go on a road trip around Europe for a couple of months. You have 3 vehicles: A nice, comfortable lexus IS200 estate. Mazda bongo campervan with full interior conversion and pop up roof. Westfield that's just passed its IVA after nearly 5 years of building. Let's be honest, despite the lack of heater, questionable weather resistance, and general noisiness, would it ever be anything but the Westfield? Doors and half hood on, my new steering wheel with quick release boss fitted, and a little practical storage added. Found a neat place to mount my jack in the engine bay. Very simply a strap riveted to the panel over the gearbox: I unfortunately didn't realise until after I'd cut chunks out of it that my boot box was for a short range tank, whereas I've got a long range one so I don't currently have a boot box. Only a plastic top which looks like it doesn't come off. This actually works out quite well, because it means I've got a place to secure my tools when road tripping. I made up a little frame from some aluminium box and angle section and riveted it in in front of the fuel tank. This holds an aluminium case which is good for the basic tools. Then my big socket set sits nicely on top of that. Other than fitting number plates when I get some post from the DVLA, the car is ready to go on a big road trip... And go on a big road trip it will. I've been keeping a little quiet about this as I was terrified of anything going wrong, but at this point, I've done everything I can. Pretty much as soon as I have registration plates on the car, I'll be hopping on a ferry to Holland, before driving to Germany, then Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and off down to Eastern Europe for a few weeks before coming back across the Alps at the end of October. The initial plan was for this to be a 3 month trip with me in the westie and my friend in his MX5, but unfortunately my build took longer than I had expected, so I've missed the first leg up through Norway to the Arctic circle. Once I hit the road, I'll be covering some pretty big miles every day to try to catch my friend up in Finland. Once I've got registration plates, it will literally be a case of finding somewhere to get my ride height sorted and wheels aligned, and then I'll be off on the ferry the next day. I'm hoping to get NMS to sort my alignment as they're not that far away from me and know Westfields, but if anyone has any other garage recommendations for alignment around the Midlands/Warwickshire, let me know!

As this is the last sprint weekend of the season I was hoping that a lot of us can make an effort to can eat/drink in the bar on Saturday night and make it a great end. Several of us will be in there Friday night as well but it would be good to have a lot of us having a good natter celebrating the events we have taken part in, who did what and what we could have done better etc Hope to see a good turnout 😀

Seeing as the weather is kind this Saturday (and may not be for the longer forecast) and I've never been to the Peak District yet I am considering the below From those that have more experience, is the above doable? I'm having to come from Northampton, so no idea whether the time that Google thinks things take, is going to be a reflection of the true driving conditions. Am thinking of setting of at 7am (from Northampton) and start off with a hearty breakfast before attacking the Peaks... Any other suggestions welcomed too!

Jim & Jean as well

Really enjoying your trip, I know most of us wish we could be doing what you are doing!!!!!! keep it going

That’s just epic 😁👍

Loving your blog updates and wishing you the very best roads and motoring on your epic road trip.

As I have on't my Lardy One. Never had any issues stopping quicker than any 'normal' car, or when on track for very long sessions. Use Mintex 1144 pads btw. I'm certainly no track king, but still found I'd be breaking much later into bends than some with much higher spec'ed brake systems. If you take into account even a heavy Westfield like mine is near half the weight of a light 'normal' 'hot' car, there's not the need for loads of extra brakage!

just press the stop pedal harder? 😂

Are you sure they are actually not actually powerful and its not just the pressure required because of no servo. I had two highly modified cars with big brake kits on before my westfield. The westfield could outbrake them both. but the effort required to do so is definitely more.

Its the car, she calls to me.

My campsite for the night! Who says a westie can't go off road, eh?

Touring mode enabled!