The streets are crooked, narrow and serpentine; a splatter of dwellings communing with nature, bar a couple of holdouts. A man of meagre cheer looks on, offering a glare that could maim, but he has every reason to be miffed. We are making a bit of a racket, after all, though it’s hard not to when you are driving a rally car; one that has trouble getting out of its own way at low revs, but gingers up conspicuously at the 5000rpm mark. Which is where the commotion starts: open exhausts tend to have that effect. Our arrival is trumpeted from at least a mile away.
It doesn’t help that this street’s a dead end, and reverse gear appears to be migratory. It’s never where you left it but, hey, this Abarthised Fiat 124 is all about forward momentum and always has been. More runs for the photographer, more commotion, then it’s back to the nearby Circuito do Estoril, but not before we dodge Olympic-sized potholes and cough and splutter past the outbuildings behind the track. They are in regular use, and the ‘colourful’ sorts who frequent them are not at all happy at the ruckus. Neither are their clients.
The choice
