Cruising 1000 miglia in a Corniche
The fourth edition of 1000 Miglia in the UAE will take place from 30th Nov to 4th Dec 2025. As it rallies classic momentum, I look back at the unforgettable journey in the previous edition, conducted in the impeccable luxury of a Rolls, sharing roads with F1 drivers and racers reliving a splendid past, and enjoying small talk with legends who once inspired my generation.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single rev”. And from the first rev on the meadows of the Emirates Golf Club in Dubai to the last reverberating rev in the basement parking lot of Hotel Conrad in Abu Dhabi, it was one pleasurable cruise in the classic Rolls-Royce, benevolently assigned to us by the 1000 Miglia organisers.
The exceptionally well-maintained Rolls-Royce Corniche 2 lived up to everything I had learnt about it on the pages of James May and also during the race from the likes of Quentin Willson, who had already played his part in switching my fledgling automotive passion to top gear when the BBC car show caught my fancy for the first time! Meeting him was one of the highlights of the five-day event – 1000 Miglia is as much about sterling people as it is about classic cars.
One young classic and a lucky duo
Compared with many other cars in the race, our 1987 Rolls-Royce Corniche 2 was a rather recent production. (If you are wondering who do ‘our’ refer to, the Corniche 2 had two drivers taking turns at the wheel – Hani Mustafa, the popular automotive journalist from India who also ticks boxes for the New York auto show’s World Car awards, and me! Perched in the cosy rear was Nishad, the relentless young man whose share of the adventure was grabbing ours on film.) Yes, 37 years isn’t too long a run for an automobile, let alone for a Rolls-Royce – but it’s not too short either. Having tested models that gleamed with gadgets the first time I drove them but soon had scores of scars as milestones, one has to agree that “they don’t make them anymore like they used to!” For instance, on a weekend without a car, I happened to rent an impressive model that I had recently tested. This example had clocked hardly a hundred thousand kilometers but already ailed from radio malfunctions, a nagging turbo lag and glitchy electronics!
The 6.75 L eight-cylinder powerhouse generated an estimated 240 hp which was delivered to the wheels through a three-speed automatic gearbox, allowing me to cruise at highway speed limits, with the feeling of speed brought in more by the wind on the second day onwards, when we chose to roll down the top. Incidentally, the mechanism makes quick work of it at the press of a button. The sun served a smooth cocktail with the cool wind, and it sounded less noisy with the top down, too. While the usefulness of a couple of extra gears was rather evident, the only time the power seemed to plateau out was with the rising altitude of Jebel Jais mountains – but not even for a moment leaving us in doubt whether we were going to make it to the top after all. The sofa seats in beige leather scooped up living room comfort, leaving me wondering about those lumbar props and contoured seats we are used to these days in contemporary luxury cars. Driving four hundred kilometres a day on the generous pneumatic suspensions of the Corniche 2 and arriving fresh enough for a shoot was indeed classic luxury.
This Kougar Jaguar is just one of those amazing cars whose presence gives you goosebumps!
A set course doesn’t mean it’s predictable!
From air-cooling to electric windows and electric side-mirror adjustment, the 1987 Rolls-Royce Corniche 2 did not flinch for once in keeping us comfortable through the 1600 km across the seven emirates, some of which we passed more than once. Well, twice on those sunny afternoons, our car startled us with a brief refusal to follow through with the ignition rev, but brief is the keyword here – as though offering us a glimpse of what could go wrong in a classic car on a very long drive and graciously saving us that trouble. But some of our fellow participants weren’t half as fortunate.
Every element of 1000 Miglia experience is a curated classic. Even this desert stopover involves a fleet of heritage Land Rovers.
From clutch fluid trouble to tardy brakes, anything was fair game to be the source of trouble. But the thing about classic car rallies is that at the end of the day, rather literally, it is a test of character than the test of a mechanical contraption. Hotel parking lots turning into repair bays; a bunch of travelling mechanics transforming trouble into stories to recount; drivers playing good Samaritans at the risk of their time log; the rare but inevitable errors that always creep into the navigator’s maps; the unintended discovery of off-route landmarks – predictability is boring. Even in a classic race, in which the oldest car was a 1918 Chrysler, the only thing time-tested is character and that rings true for the men (and women) even more than their machines!
This token of participation was handed over at the completion of the race. I call it the “license to tell” classic tales.
This test of character was at the heart of the newly instituted award, celebrating the ‘kindest act’ in the race – which went to the driver who had the heart to spare a clutch cable for a stranded car, from his own machine. And then there was the “hero of the race” whose spirit of adventure surmounted multiple challenges and breakdowns on the way to completing the course with indomitable will. Participating in 1000 Miglia and completing it is a testimony to the unbreakable quality of these classic cars but truly, it is such bravehearts that keep them alive and revving in their classic journey on a timeless terrain.
