Return to 'the family'.

Thomas Rudolf from Strassbourg probably made more pre-war miles than most of you: 350.000 km (over 160,00 miles). A few years ago he said farewell to his fine Hotchkiss and bought a Beetle... A great car, but we were most happy to hear that he has returned to the family, now with a Model A Phaeton. Now he only has to sell the Beetle...

"I drove my cars from the thirties and the twenties, and made around... 350.000 kilometers in West and North Europe. Between the summer of 2006 and 201O I travelled my 1925 boat tail Hotchkiss AM2 in England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the Faroer Islands, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Lapland.

I met Joris Bergsma 2006 at Prescott Hill where my Hotchkiss in the years before participated driven by an Irish and a Scottish enthusiast. I visited them in Moulinarn (Scottland) and in Ballimena (Ulster). But when I was in Lapland 4 years ago with her (the Hotchkiss), I thought that I was a pittyful, silly guy, because since 30 years I made my holidays like a potato bag with the wrench in my pocket. Finland was flat and I decided to travel now on my own. I heard during my vintage car cruising 30 years long the same deceptive question abroad: "Are you here on your own?"

So I made 2011, 12 and 13 the same first with a bicycle plus trailer, and the two last summers with a recumbent bike. My recumbent bike is a prototype and I am the first and the unique French bicycle driver with an HPV Scorpion fs, but with the Pinion gearbox in the crank. I have 18 gears, so I can do the Lofoten and Vesterålen Islands with 14%, 18%. Because you cannot push hillup a recumbent bike. Only 10 other Germans or Austrians have prototypes like me. It is a combination of a factory rolling chassis from HPV with the Pinion Crank/Gear box, made by two young Porsche engeneers. The mariage is made by BuSvelomo of Berlin.

But I am 60 and I do not know how long I can drive my recumbent upon the polar circle so far away, even when starting from Helsinki.

A few weeks ago I received a 1928 Ford Model A Phaeton, shipped by Théo Castricum. In a couple of years, when I am too tired for the genuine landscape cruising, I shall sit again behind my steering wheel to enjoy a new 'cinémascope' in the North.

editor: welcome back to pre-war family Thomas! We're lookign forward to read about new travelling adventures.