'The Alps are absolutely amazing, we drove up them one day as far as we could'

John and Cepta Sheppard took on a staggering 2,680km round trip last month visiting nine countries in nine days in their 1964 Hillman Imp 875cc Sport Engine and tell SALLY HARDING the adventure was every classic car lovers dream

A vintage car enthusiast husband and wife duo from Oristown who went on an epic adventure of travelling nine countries in nine days in their classic vehicle say it was a trip of a lifetime.

John and Cepta Sheppard, members of Celtic Owners Vehicle Club in Kells took on the impressive 2,680km round trip last month in their 1964 Hillman Imp 875cc Sport Engine.

They were joined by Dolores and Michael Connell from Longford and Paul and Laura Flanagan from Enniskillen with the group travelling through The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Italy merging ‘Going Dutch’ and ‘Going Continental’ , renowned rallies in the Imp car world.

Vice chair of the Celtic Owners Vehicle Club (COVOC) and secretary of the Imp Club in Ireland, John Sheppard says the adventure was every classic car lovers dream, travelling through historical regions and visiting car museums.

“Normally , we do Going Dutch every second year which involves four days in the Netherlands in different regions,” said John.

“One of the guys decided to do nine countries in nine days after that so we just tagged on at the end of that,” he added.

“Because the ferries are so expensive to get to Holland, we decided to make the best of the cost of the ferries, that’s the main reason we decided to do the full tour this time.”

Four of the group embraced on the trip from Ireland in different variants of Imps including a Hillman Imp 1964 875cc Sport Engine, 1966 Hillman Imp Standard, 1967 Hillman Imp 1040cc twin twin 40s Weber’s and 1968 Sunbeam Stiletto 1040cc twin 40s Webers.

The Hillman Imp is a compact, rear-engined saloon car that was manufactured under the Hillman marque by the Rootes Group (later Chrysler Europe) from 1963 to 1976. The Imp was to be the first post-Second World War small car by the Rootes group. Its main rival on the home market was the BMC Mini which preceded the Imp by nearly four years. Revealed in 1963 after much advance publicity, it was the first British mass-produced car with the engine block and cylinder cast in aluminium.

Clonee motor sport legend, the late Rosemary Smith famously won the Tulip Rally outright, beating all the male drivers to the finish driving a Hillman Imp. Smith and her co-driver Britain’s Valerie Domleo were declared the winners of the four day, 2,000 mile motor rally in the Netherlands.

John says the scenery, culture and history of the regions they drove through will stay etched in his memory forever.

“The Alps are absolutely amazing, we drove up them one day as far as we could,” said the the Imp Club of Ireland secretary.

“Two of the main passes that we were due to cross over were blocked but we did get to the top one where there was snow and it was like something from a film,” he added.

“One of the days we stayed in Mulhouse, a city in Eastern France near the Swiss and German borders and we visited the Bugatti Museum, the largest car museum in the world, that is a sight to behold. This is the Venice of museums, it is opulence on a grand scale with cars from the 1890 to modern cars. You could spend the whole day here.

“In Friesland we visited an Opel Museum there which is very exciting for anyone interested in vintage car. It is home to a wide variety of Opel cars, most are from the 1950s and 1960s but there are older ones.”

John said the group clocked up 280km most days with one of the days driving over 400km.

“The journey began On 22nd May when we left Dublin and got the Ferry across to Hollyhead and then onto Hull which is about a 200 mile journey across England, said the car enthusiast.

“We caught the ferry that evening from Hull to Rotterdam and from there we headed for Sloten in Friesland, home of the Friesian cows,” he added. “After an hour’s drive, we decided to go for coffee and another six imps pulled in behind us. We had booked a chalet for six only to discover it was a house and great value home for the next four days. We went to the camp site for a meet and greet and drinks where there was even local poteen on offer!

“Next we drove along the border of Ijsselmeer, a closed-off inland bay in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland.

“Here you see copious amounts of bicycles that have the right of way all of the time. We stopped for lunch at the side of the Ijsselmeer lake, it's a manmade lake that was recovered from the sea and is slowly becoming fresh water.”

John said the group was thrilled to get the chance to visit The Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, where it took Eise, an amateur astronomer seven years from 1774 to 1781 to build the planetarium in his house using 6,000 handmade nails and is suspended from the living room ceiling.

The group’s journey continued into Nijmegen, the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland. We visited a church here where the organist was practicing, we then walked through a park to the river Waal where we had lunch and watch the barges go by, some of which were huge,” said John.

“After this , we left the Netherlands and headed for the Ardennes, a real paradise for nature lovers and a really magical place with forests and valleys,” he added. “We stopped on the way at La Gileppe one of the oldest dams in Belgium where it is said that the engineer threw himself off the dam when it began to leak but it was never breached.

“At this stage we broke into two groups and continued through the Ardennes and on to Luxemburg where we visited Vianden, the last town in Luxemburg to be liberated by the Americans in World War II with the loss of eleven men killed in action and 53 injured.”

The Oristown couple travelled on to Liechtenstein in Switzerland and to Livigno in Italy.

“Lichtenstein is about the size of Louth with 38,000 people,” said the vice chairperson of the Celtic Owners Vehicle Club.

“The plan was to drive over the Stelvio pass but it was blocked by snow so we had to divert to the Fluela pass which is 2,384 metres high with lots of hair pin turns,” he added.

“Carrantuohill in Kerry is our highest mountain at 1,041meters, this was twice that height so you can imagine the sheer scale of this one.”

John who was a mechanic in Tara Mines for 41 years, retiring four years ago says he became involved with Hillman Imp cars by chance. “My brother in law had a car in the garden and asked me if I would be interested in taking it on as a project back in 1987, that was really the start of my interest in the Imps,” said John.

“I didn't know where it would be taking me all these years later. It is a great community to be involved in.”