It’s a strange thing to realize, but you can absolutely have exciting motorsport action without speed. I know that seems ridiculous at first; isn’t speed kind of an inherent quality of racing? Eh, sometimes, sure! But sometimes not! A perfect example of this is this video I happened to stumble upon of this year’s Cotswold Clouds car trial. These trials are run on privately-owned dirt roads in woods and include some genuinely bonkers sections, like the one I want to show you today — a hill called, with vigorous and unashamed Britishness, Crooked Mustard. This video of all these fantastic cars – things like Suzuki X90s and Reliant Scimitar SS1s and Duttons and Mark I Escorts and a delightful number of air-cooled Beetles – scrambling and grabbing and just trying so damn hard to get up that steep, leafy, unforgiving mud chute of a hill is just so exciting to watch. You’ll be rooting and cheering for these little guys to get up there, but be warned: most don’t! Still, trust me, this will suck you in. And you’ll love it.
Here, I’m too excited, just watch this:
Damn, that is one difficult mothertrusting hill! Hardly any cars actually made it up there, and the way this event is scored, that sort of failure can earn you points. Yes, earn, because of course this is all overcomplicated, scoring-wise:
A Car Trial is a single venue event, held on private land, with 6-8 sections for competitors to negotiate. These sections are subdivided 12-0 and involve undulation. The further up a section you get the lower your score. If you get all the way up a section you get a clear (0). The winner is the person with the lowest score at the end of the day. If you stop on a hill you fail the hill at the number on the next post. If the centre of your front wheels are beyond a number e.g. 5 then you score a 4 as you are in the 4 section until you pass the number 4 post. If you pass the number 1 post you have cleared the section.
Well, maybe it’s not that complicated, you want a lower score, but still, after “involve undulation” my brain kinda fogged over, anyway.
I so wanted one of those Beetles to make it! A few came really close, and I think one of the few that did make it was a Beetle-based dune buggy kind of thing. Oh, speaking of VW-based dune buggy kind of things, I loved this tiny, seemingly home-built little special that uses a Beetle chassis:
You know what did make it? A Smart Roadster!
It’s also great to see how everyone bounces up and down in their little cars, hoping to get those skinny tires to dig in and wrest some traction from the slick, uncaring Earth, flinging aside leaves and mulch, or just cooking them into tire smoke as they try and try and try.
This all looks like a blast. I’d love to do it some day. Anyway, enjoy that video, and don’t be afraid to cheer, loudly.
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I absolutely love trials videos.
The timing of the passengers’ ‘whomping’ makes a huge difference. Some of them are so vigorous that I wonder whether they end up bruised.
One course with a dished 180° leading up to a steep, narrow, and bumpy slot made me wonder about engine management: the Fords in particular seem to go up it wide F’in open. No rev limiter I can hear. Maybe valve-float at the top end keeps them from coming apart?
There’s a few featuring a young lady in a fur coat, a cloud of hair & interesting hat acting as interviewing reporter. I’m not sure if she actually was aiming for a tv career or just taking the piss. Fun either way
As a lifelong Shitbox proponent, Trials look to be the absolute most fun that can be had in a tiny car with (often waterproof) clothes on
This is some fun stuff! I kinda hoped there’d be a Renault 4 doing the course in reverse without breaking a sweat at some point, but I guess that would be way too much humiliation for all the other cars.
I hope one day I find a cheap, running R4 that I can strip down completely, add a roll cage, a couple of five-point harness Recaro seats and some offroad tires, just so I can participate in these shitbox off-road events. This looks like the most fun one can have off-roading.
This really emphasizes how ridiculous the Raptor, TRX, etc, are.
A decade ago, we did a lot of remote camping in the wilderness of Quebec… In our 2008 scion xB
I’ve seen this a few days ago, and the fleet of Reliant Scimitar SS1s blew my mind. Why?
We must frequent the same spots, I just watched this video going through my daily crap.
There was even a VW Type 3 notchback in there! It didn’t make it up, but it was nice to see a T3 in attendance.
I’m inordinately pleased that I guessed that the little wedge roadsters were a type of Reliant Scimitar, in this case the SS1. Cute little things, I’d never seen them before but they had a sort of TVR look to them and for some reason Reliant (maybe because of the boxy front end like the Robin) and then the Scimitar came to mind, even though the other version looks nothing like this. Speaking of which, Torch, whatever happened to your Scimitar, is it on the road in someone else’s hands now? I assume you had the shooting brake version as it’s more—unusual.
That was great!
Now to watch it again with a hip hop soundtrack.
I’m thinking Jay Z “Can I Get a” will go nicely with that video.
I really like the bounce maneuver some open-wheel cars were doing off the bank on the final turn.
Some that made it, like the blue car in the lower left of the “Cut the Mustard” lead in photo, appear to be Dellows, a ’50s car designed for trialing that used surplus WWII rocket tubes to make the tubular chassis. I’ve always thought they occupied a very cool niche in classiccardom. You can read more about them here –> Dellow Register
I remember reading about Dellow’s many years ago, fascinated as I have always loved little old British cars and I learned about “trials” before there was YouTube to teach you about such things. I have never seen a Dellow in the flesh, but was fun to see a reference to them here. I seems to recall the dedicated trials cars had a system to apply brakes to a new wheel at a time get the opposite wheel to spin.
This video is awesome. I don’t know why someone thought it was a good idea to off road an MR2 or Miata, but I’m glad they did.
Incidentally, this video is proof that 4wd/AWD is highly overrated. I’ve heard several people say all wheel drive is an absolute necessity because it snowed in their town once in the early ’90s. I’ll keep a link to this video to dispel that myth. If a Miata can get half way up that hill, you don’t need a Humvee to get to the drivethru at Starbucks.
As someone that off roads very often I can say that with 4wd and picking a much better line and going a bit less on the throttle that hill would not be that hard and you would not need to redline your engine. I know that is not the point but for lots of dirt, rocks, mud and elevation changes in those conditions the front axle does help a lot.
There certainly seems to be a technique to getting up the hill. Most of the cars that make it tend to go wide through those last two curves, avoiding that slick, rutted part next to the tree. Though I imagine from the driver’s seat that’s a bit more daunting than it appears.
Also, judging by the amount of one wheel peels, I’m guessing locking diffs aren’t allowed?
Looks like they’ve found a hill they want to die on.
Do the rules require open differentials and relatively smooth tires?
Man that looks like fun.
This is just delightful
Top Gear had a segment on this last year. Looks like a hoot.
Many things spring to mind, including:
– :reading the rules and scoring: so, hillclimb golf?
– Miata is almost the answer
– What was the little blue car that first made it? Some form of VW kit car?
– Need to mail David over there and have him find something to compete with.
– Some of these are damn close to needing a roll bar
Yeah, that blue one that made it was a VW-based kit of some kind. You can see the telltale rear torsion bar tube just in front of the rear tire.
Nice. Wonder what about it was so different that allowed it to mount the hill.
There are similar competitions in southeast Asia with tuk tuks and other rickshaw type machines. Just as engaging as this
I reckon it’s how light they are at the front. The think all those stubby, caterham-looking doodads seem to have in common is they’re VW based, with a narrow, light front end, so they just wheelie over that last ridge.
“Still, trust me, this will suck you in. And you’ll love it.”
You weren’t lying!
Anyway, loved to see the clapping and the “good effort” when it was warranted. Also, about 1/4 through the video you start to be able to tell which cars will make it and which won’t (easy from this vantage point, not so on the ground, I’m sure).
Absolutely adorable and wholesome from start to finish, thank you.
Oh yeah, car trials are a hoot to watch. I saw a video years ago of one that was all REALLY old cars, I think an MG TC was about the newest. Lots of Austin Sevens and whatnot. I’m amazed how well most of them do, actually.
So Mercedes and Sheryl won the hill climb….
Meanwhile, in another part of Autopia, David’s crushes the competition with a Chevy Tracker and 4-wheel drive engaged by a turkey baster.
Each of those cars: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can… RAAAARRRRRRR!!”
Full send, innit?
And I love that they all appear to be road-legal. And the VW go-kart appeared to spit some orange flames from the exhaust at about the 4:24 mark.
“…innit”
are you from yorkshire?
just curious, it’s not a common phrase i hear much
No, I’m from the US but it seemed appropriate given the topic at hand. I generally associate “innit” more with London but my experience is limited.
Any road, soome o’ them caaahhs went up t’ hill right well, I’ll tell ya that for nowt. 🙂
Funny, I always thought “innit” was common all over England. It’s one of those go-to expressions that people who aren’t from England use a lot in contexts concerning England (like using interjections such as blimey or bollocks).
You go, tiny little piglets in a big, scary world! I love the underdogs.
I just realized I cheered in a very similar manner to the way I cheered my since departed chihuahua when I sent him outside to poop in over six inches of snow. This explains some of my excitement to see the little guys succeed, or at least mount a valiant attempt.
So satisfying to watch. How can anyone not root for the underdogs
I remember a
Edit:
I remember as a kid in the 1960’s, being strapped in the back of my mother’s Downton mini with my father driving, it was a family thing, for difficult sections kids had to be unloaded. The “Trials Specials” were the fast cars, but everybody got to “run what they brung”.
A very British form of motorsport. (-:
These trials events are so awesome and I really kick myself for not knowing about them when I lived in the UK. I would have loved to check them out!
On a side note, Colin Chapmans first specials (that eventually became Lotus) were built based on Austin 7’s to compete as Trials cars.
My god the audio is making me twitchy and cringy with all those small engines revving madly and tires digging. wow, shit must just get broken.