Turbo2

Who has driven the longest distance in one day from waking up early one morning to getting to bed that same evening?

My record was in about 1995, when I had to drive alone in a rented diesel VW van piled high with DIY power tools that I had to take from my then-home in Market Harborough (Leicestershire) to a DIY store near Lake Constance, South Germany. All within the day.

That's about 720+ miles and wasn't much fun on the Autobahn in a weezing fully-loaded van!

JackClark

I drove home from Portugal, have to admit to a couple of hours kip on the roadside but was home within 24 hours. Might have broken the law a little.

Brun

FFS the name escapes me but one member of this forum ran in a Scooby Sport IIRC over night and took it in for it's 1k service 1 day after collection


Edit - i think it was John Felstead

Another edit - Click

spender(again)

iTrader: (1)

Only 630 miles for me Herts to the Dordogne (and some of that was on a ferry) in 12 hours.
Averaged 52 mph for the trip although the ferry was slower and we stopped for lunch. Some of the trip was at naughty speeds.

Simon C

500 mile round trip to blackpool.

Drove up there, picked someone up then drove back. I must have been bloody mad.

Will be broken next year when I drive to Dahn (Germany)

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

For me it was April 1992 and I did 973 miles in one day.
A workmate was going to pick up a Jap import motorcycle from London. I took him there on my bike. Then I zigzagged back up the country (to Scotland) visiting many of the towns I went to when I was in the RAF. I arrived home 23 hours later.

Matteeboy

Southern Alps to Calais, ferry trip then Calais to Cornwall. I think I nearly died!

boxst

I drove just under a 1000 miles on my way to Poland, stopped just short of the border in the end to stay what was left of the night in a hotel and continued the next day.

Fun, empty motorways quite a lot of the time followed by emply mountain mountain roads where you could use the Satellite Navigation as a pseudo rally co-driver as you could see where the tough corners were to slow down.

Steve

Leslie

Costa Brava to N Germany, 1000 + miles in just over 24 hours. Just far enough I thought at the time!

Les

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

I drove from Vegas to Los Angeles, long beach etc and back again in a day. Sadly we got T-boned near Hollywood and had to drive the car back to Vegas shaped like a banana with a 2" gap at the tops of the passenger doors

What makes it worse is that when we walked in to rent it my mates first words were "give us any piece of ****, we'll only write it off anyway"

The accident wasn't our fault though, a woman working at the studios was late for work and speeding across the junction and hit us at speed She still tried claiming it was our fault & she had a stiff neck etc the following day At the scene she appologised, explained she was late and a hurry and admitted it was her fault

Cupramax

Poole in Dorset to Newcastle and back in a day so approx 700 miles...

Boro

iTrader: (1)

We randomly decided to leave at 2.30am one morning (had been up since 9am that morning) to drive from Cornwall to Newcastle (the North East one) to pick up a car. Got there at about 9am to find the guy was working and couldnt get home til lunch time. Walked round Metro Centre for a couple of hours, went to look at the car and then drove home.

Got back home and 11pm and drove about 700-800 miles. All without any sleep.

Jerome

I once drove an 4 tonne Army lorry with trailer as part of a convoy from Aldershot to Hameln (Hamlin) in Germany. It took 26 hours to cover the 500 odd miles.

That includes a 4 hour break for the ferry crossing, and we had 2 drivers per vehicle, but pretty knackering to say the least. We changed drivers roughly every 2 hours, stopping places depending.

Almost every driver fell asleep at some point in the journey. All we could do was block the motorway with the trucks behind until they woke up. At one point the guy driving a low loader with a tracked vehicle on the back was weaving across all the lanes. Some even changed drivers whilst driving along.

Thankfully this wouldn't happen now as drivers have to do drivers hours sheets etc.

SirFozzalot

My longest is about 525 miles. That was South Essex to Stockton-on-Tees and back in a day.

Closely followed by South Essex to Inversnaid - Scotland - About 480 miles.

South Essex to Trier in Germany felt longer but in fact was "only" about 400 miles.

BOB.T

I've done the Isle of Skye to Hertfordshire... not quite the epic mileages above but to be fair it did snow, rain, sleet and cripes knows what else on the way!

Another endurance one was North Yorkshire to Portsmouth, ferry to LaHarve (?), drive to Lemans, watch the 24 hour race, with about an hour kip, back to the ferry, back to North Yorkshire. The last 30 odd miles were done with no clutch cable and all of it was in a Fiesta, at times 5 up!

Markus

1273 km, 12 1/2 hours in one day. I've done that a couple of times. It was driving to or from Toronto to our office in St Louis.

Toronto to Montreal is the next longest at about six hours.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I'm a lightweight: I did South London to the Lake District and was tired!

mart360

Depends..

In the UK, Chichester to Stevenson in Ayrshire in one day,

And Chichester - Middlesborough Middlesborough - Chichester in one day

In Europe Portsmouth to Saarloius in Germany via the tunnel, started at 7 in the morning.. did a full days work, then had to do a drive accross to Saarloius with some coleagues to resolve an issue in plant.

set off at 6pm, and arrived in saarloius at about 5am lol


Mart

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Essex to Cornwall and back, 600 miles.

In a diesel transit.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

After a day couriering, did a Glasgow overnight (there back in 10 hours!), then another days work. 800 miles for the Glasgow trip alone...

With a m8 came back from the Bol D'Or (Paul Ricard Circuit, South of France) to London on our bikes - about 11 hours riding but we had to wait a couple of hours for the channel tunnel - that's about 800 miles too.

Have also hitch-hiked from Staples Corner to Birmingham, Lancaster, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Berwick, Newcastle, Hexham and back to Staples Corner in less than 30 hours - somewhat over 900 miles!

john_s

iTrader: (1)

850-ish miles, heading across the USA. Not sure where exactly we'd started, but we'd been driving all day, through South Dakota, passed through the Badlands, visited Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse as the sun was going down, and for some reason, we kept going for ages afterwards. Finally stopped somewhere in Wyoming.

michaelro

Flew from Amsterdam to Gatwick (220 Miles)
Gatwick to Maidstone (45 Miles)
Maidstone to South Mimms Services (65 Miles)
South Mimms to Southampton (90 Miles)
Southampton to Norwich (225 Miles)


645 miles in about 14 Hours

Flew home from a stag weekend, picked the wife up on her way home from her hen weekend in Blackpool got all the way home (Southampton) only to find my father in law had died and we had to leave for Norwich...

EddScott

I do West Wales to West Yorkshire quite often. Sometimes within 24 hours.

I did a down and back once from West Wales to Oxfordshire in a blizzard pretty much the whole time in my old 205 GTI. M4 was closed in parts and while most were sat in the slow lane I followed a 4X4 wheel tracks.

Usually takes 3 hours each way but on this occassion it took 6 each way.

Scooby Snacks 23

In the days where your mileage was taken into account for your company car, i would always squeeze in 2500 miles every March. I would drive up to Inverness from Reigate (circa 660 miles) twice in that month and do it in about 8 hours, stopping only for fuel.

Couldn't do it now with my dodgy knees (mind you, don't need to now either!)

SVXNUT

You bunch of lightweights!!!!!!!!!!!!. I drive about 650-800 miles a day on average. (Courier). Thinking back my record is drive from Sandbach to Walsall. Then drive to Peterhead. The drive to Inverness for rtrn load. Then drive to Chester, and then home to Sandbach. That works out at about 1300 miles. All in 24hrs.

WRXBOB

Back in 2000 when we could buy 24 500ml cans of Stella for £7.50 we used to drive from York to Calais and back regularly. We would hire a Sprinter / Transit for 24hours and could manage 2 return trips before the van went back. The chunnel is 280 miles for us so thats 1,120 miles plus a bit of driving around calais. Although there were 2 of us, it was always me that did 99% of the driving.

In the UK I've driven from Chippenham (Wiltshire) to Glasgow, spent 30 mins on site in Glasgow and then driven to Stirling, spent an hour on site in Stirling then headed off to a hotel. No idea what mileage it was, but working for that company earned me loads of points for speeding - was on 10 points when I left!!!

Now I drive to Austria twice a year - Winter for Skiing and Summer for fun in the sun. When we go to Vienna its 280 miles to the chunnel and a further 845miles from calais to Vienna making it around 1,130miles which I do non stop apart from refuelling. In winter its a little less and is typically just over 1,000 miles.
Last year we went out and bought a new caravan (first time ever I've owned a van) and towed that to Austria the following week! Its no harder towing a 'van long distance as long as your motor is up to the job. Plus I have a bed for 30mins on the chunnel!

moff1888

Just shy of 700 miles.

Herford, North Germany to Newton Aycliffe via Calais/Dover and back down to York.

1 sitting to drop some mates off and back home to York. Although that being the furthest it certainly wasn't the longest that record belongs to being in a convoy to Poland stuck at 30KM/H in a Bedford, took the best part of 2 days.

pwhittle

had to drive a 15 year old Tranny (the only thing I could hire with a tow bar) from Bradford to Knockhill and back. Only about 550 miles, but took 15 hours, with no stereo, and running on fumes for the last 30 miles (on a Sunday night).
Totally knackering, but work up smiling and with a race car on the lawn

also did York - Geneva with a 3 hours break in Essex, had a car full of students, so had to endure their music...