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YE OLDE ENGLAND INNE, VERMONT’S HOME FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE MOTORING EVENTS. (Special room rates for all car owners who participate in these events) MICRO CARS FOR EARTH DAY(NEW THIS YEAR!) April 17th- 19th 2010 Featuring the rare and unusual microcars from Europe and the Far East.for a weekend of fun show and shine. some village motoring too. Covered Bridges, Waterfalls and Forests. Organic Foods, Wines and Ales. Minis In The Mountains May 14th - 16th A weekend devoted to the magnificent mini and their enthusiastic owners, goodiebags, dinner and dancing, fun tours and social surprises! Mustangs in the Valley June 11th - 13th Here they come both classics from the 60's and all models since are invited to join us for a great weekend of motoring show and show and shine. All manner of awards, some dancing dinners and general revelry as like minded owners and fans alike share their passion for what has been dubbed one of the prettiest cars to emerge off the drawing boards of Detroit. The Stowe Cobra Conclave June 25th - 27th The ultimate head turning Anglo - American street race car celebration. Originals and superb reproductions. Power, camaraderie, touring and tales.
Annual Antique and Classic Car Show August 13th -15th Watch New England's largest car show (1000+ cars) from the comfort of our Inne. www.vtauto.org 20th Annual British Invasion Rolls Royce. Bentley. Austin Healey Triumph Motorcycles North America's largest British Classic Sports Car and Motorcycle Event. Ye Olde England Inne is the hub and headquarters for most of Stowe's Car Show activities. We look forward to welcoming you and your prized car to one of these special events. Other car events are planned so please check back frequently! Driving a super car: It’s a blast! 07/17/08 By Will Sabel Courtney (Stowe Reporter) This car has 650 horsepower.It’s the one thought burbling through my mind in time with the tailpipe rumble as I slowly pull the Callaway C16 onto Route 105 in North Troy, Vt. With nothing but open road in front of me, I do the only thing to do when driving a car with a better power-to-weight ratio than a World War II Spitfire: I floor it. The car doesn’t seem to accelerate that fast, until the supercharger begins whining beneath the hood, winding up as the V-8 engine reaches 4,000 rpm — and suddenly, I’m thrown back against the seat hard enough to whack my head as the world goes blurry on either side of me. This isn’t a car; it’s the Millennium Falcon, and I just jumped to hyperspeed. A new thought comes to mind, two words I saw on the lips of a 10-year-old boy back in North Troy at the sight of this car: the first one “holy,” the second anything but. “Our program is a trust relationship,” Peter Law, the gray-haired senior driver for this World Class Driving event, says several hours earlier at the pre-drive meeting at Ye Olde England Inne in Stowe. “We’d like you to drive (the cars) like they’re your own.” I try to hide an evil grin at that. I’m sure I’m not alone; I’d wager just about all nine of the other drivers in the room are disguising their glee. After all, we’ve come from as far away as Texas to drive five of the fastest, most expensive automobiles in the world. But before we do, we have to squirm through a lesson about the company’s procedures. I pray this briefing will live up to both meanings of the world “brief.” Law, who says he’s been in racing most of his life, warns us to be alert while driving his company’s cars this afternoon — a privilege the men in the room have each paid $1,495 for. More slides flash on his PowerPoint presentation: No burnouts; traction control on. Law tells us not to rev the cars in neutral. “We lost an Aston Martin that way,” he says. After the briefing, we spill out of the lodge and into the cars parked out front. The drivers are divided into two groups; I’ll be driving during the even-numbered stages, so I pile into the Chrysler Concorde pace car for the first segment, up through the jaw-clenchingly tight turns of Smugglers’ Notch. We’re barely through the Notch when the cars pull over for a driver change, and I’m directed into the Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, a 523-horsepower monster that’s been lightened and souped up over the “regular” Gallardo. I barely have time to register where all the controls are before the pace car pulls back onto the road, followed by the Ford GT ahead of me. My turn. I click the right-hand paddle behind the steering wheel that summons upshifts and feather the throttle in first gear, gingerly pulling onto Route 108. The Ford is well over a football field ahead of me, so — what the heck — I press the throttle to its stop. The V-10 engine behind my head fills the air with a tenor howl that would make Pavarotti proud. I flick the car into second gear, then third, then fourth as the Lamborghini charges ahead. The car reads the road to my fingertips as though the steering wheel was covered in Braille, and carves up corners like a diamond-bladed scalpel. Incredible. The only time it seems thrown off its game is when I hit the brakes; like any charging bull, this Lamborghini doesn’t like to stop, and its carbon-ceramic brakes, designed to resist fading when hot, are grabby enough to make my head yo-yo back and forth when pulling up to stop signs. “In the Lambo, (the brakes are) on or off,” Law admits from his seat beside me in my next car, the 620-horsepower Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano. He starts to add something else, but gets cut off as I peel out, the big V-12 roaring. “Sorry about that,” I say. Law says the Ferrari is his favorite. I stepped into it with a sizable car-crush, but within a mile my feelings have exploded into full-blown automotive infatuation. Where the Lamborghini slices and dices the road like a samurai blade, the Ferrari just flows along like liquid mercury. It doesn’t feel like a machine — it feels alive, like it’s symbiotically merging with its driver. Every surface, from the creases in the sheet metal to the contrasting leather on the ceiling, is made with impeccable care. I’m in love. After the organic experience of the Ferrari, the Callaway seems downright distant. Its afterburner thrust feels disconcertingly mechanical, and the way it shimmies like a paint mixer along rough roads leaves me feeling somewhat cold — and scared. Plowing down a mountain road, I find myself falling behind the other cars, in large part because the General Motors automatic transmission tends to shift into high gear all too easily. Flooring the gas forces a downshift that blasts me back into warp speed, but doing so on the winding, frost-heaved road only serves to flash my life before my eyes. I’m not sad to climb out of it at the next stop. The Maserati GranTurismo, in contrast, is the picture of civility. Despite being the least-powerful car in the group — it has 405 horsepower, and is the only one with rear seats — the GranTurismo seeks quite happy to tango along the roads, much like its stronger cousin the Ferrari. Never once do I feel anything but relaxed — even while hitting 93 mph on a curvy section of Route 109 near Waterville. It even has four cup-holders, for God’s sake. If I were picking one of these cars to drive every day, I’d go with the Maserati — if I hadn’t already sold my soul for the Ferrari. Finally, on the outskirts of Smugglers’ Notch once more, I swap into the Ford GT with a nervous gulp. During the briefing, Law told us to be wary in this car; with 550 horsepower and no traction control, it “will swap ends on you just like that,” he said. With a damp layer coating the road ahead, I’m not particularly happy about ushering this bottle of automotive nitroglycerine through the Notch. But ultimately, it’s a moot point; even after I putter through the curves in first gear, traffic is heavy enough along Mountain Road that I never push the car above 40 mph. All I can do is roll down the window and cruise along — and hope somebody I know sees me driving a $150,000 supercar.
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It is not by chance that Stowe enjoys its reputation as the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated resort town in Vermont. Here in one of nature's most spectacular valleys, amidst the mountains, forest, and waterfalls come the adventurers, skiers, golfers, musicians, equestrians, cyclists, gourmets, romantics, and celebrities, all participating in a myriad of events and international festivals. Come escape to our beautiful Green Mountains for some well earned fun and rest. |