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Boys And Their Toys

By John Slavin
Freelance Contributing Writer
07 July 2010

Buttertubs: the UK's finest road?
At Make and Model, it’s very easy to find your new toy, be it a 100bhp hot hatch, or a £100,000 supercar. The thing is, if you give a boy a toy, he’s going to want to play… and what better playground than the highs, lows, twists and turns of the Yorkshire Dales?

There are very few places quite like this. Asphalt draped precariously over sharp, steep, shaky passes and long, rolling curves, switchbacks, and s-bends, all strewn through mile upon mile of green hills and bracken-brown moorland. It’d be heaven if not for the glacially slow caravans and stray sheep.

But the tourist problems become moot when you have this kind of metal; a pair of Ferraris, a trio of M3s, a Gallardo, and a chrome wrapped, 628bhp Nissan GTR. There’s a cacophony of noise, from whining metallic rasp of the M3s, to the low, burbling rumble of the Gallardo, the hills are alive with the sound of our kind of music, percussed by the pop-bang of flame firing from the straight through exhaust on the GTR.

Our road of choice for the day is the infamous Buttertubs Pass. Having seen an Ariel Atom chicken out at the bottom and turn around because ‘it’s too bumpy,’ it’s obvious that this is not a drive to be taken lightly. We discover this firsthand when the F430 bottoms out. Lots. This short stretch of tarmac connects Wensleydale to its northern neighbor Swaledale. So called because of the rock formations halfway along, into which farmers would hang their butter to keep it cool, the Buttertubs Pass also just happens to wind across the top of a precarious, steep sided valley, and it is utterly breathtaking.

Asphalt draped precariously over sharp, steep, shaky passes and long, rolling curves, switchbacks, and s-bends, all strewn through mile upon mile of green hills...it is utterly breathtaking.


After several runs up and down this mad stretch of road we head off to the Ribblehead Viaduct for a spot of lunch, and soak up another awe inspiring road. Passing through Hawes, I expect at least one or two jokes about the place’s pronunciation, but without even a giggle we join the B6255 and tear along 10 miles of sheep strewn spaghetti blacktop, eat a plate of whitebait, and go our separate ways.

It’s all well and good owning a machine like this and taking it up and down the motorway, but there is no substitute for a day like this, taking the best machines in the world over the best roads in the world, it’s impossible not to crack a smile.

So if you want to take your four-wheeled toy out for fun and games, bring it to here. You’ll have the time of your life.


Supercars in the Sun


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