Articles by Jeremy Hart

There’s two ways to reach the German border, either via Lille and Mons, or head up the coast to Dunkirk and then east to Brussels. We do the latter.

Every single petrol-engined Fiesta in Europe is fitted with an engine from Bridgend (diesel engines come from Ford’s Dagenham engine plant). The plant builds Ford’s state of the art Duratech engine family in its equally state of the art facility. You’d miss the factory if you didn’t know where to find it. You expect a factory producing something as mechanical as an engine would belch fire and smoke, but there’s no noise or drama as you drive past the local Ford dealership and come to the factory itself. It’s a large local employer and a key part of the community. It must have been a tremendous boost to the area when it opened in 1980, just a few years beforet the local coal industry collapsed.There’s a pride in the workforce that’s easy spot. But if you want another sign that the people at Bridgend love the blue oval than have a look in the staff park. There are Focus ST dotted about and a few lime green Focus RS as well as loads of hot Fiestas.After meeting a few of the workers it’s a short hop to the M4 to cross the Severn into England. As is becoming usual on this leg of the world tour, we’re dodging the ominous clouds and heavy rain squalls. London seems to be bathed in sunshine.We’re opposite the houses of parliament with our two Fiestas and Mark Prisk MP, minister for business and finance. Prisk is a big flag waver for British manufacturing and getting the message across that contrary to popular opinion Britain is makes a lot of stuff. In fact, he tells us, Britain is the sixth largest manufacturing base in the world. Outside his department in nearby Victoria St there’s a JCB digger painted in Union Jack colours – indicating that this machine is totally British. Ironically, its engine is also made in Bridgend.After a swift trundle around the block by Mr Prisk in one of the Fiestas we head down to Inc’s new office in Godalming, Surrey to collect carnets for the Middle East. Inc’s office was built long before any building we saw in USA was built. Soon, however, we’ll be seeing ancient buildings in the Middle East that will make a 400 year-old barn look like it was built yesterday.We’re now on our last leg in the UK, driving from Inc HQ in Godalming to Dover. It’s an overnight stay on the side of Dover’s historic docks and marina before catching an early P&O ferry to Calais. Tomorrow we’ve a six or seven hour drive to Cologne through Belgium on not the world’s most exciting roads. Mind you, we have been rather spoilt by our drive through Wales on some of Europe’s most dramatic driving roads. Never mind, soon we’ll be in the Alps and better still, the Stelvio pass.

Early start from Dublin on the super swift Irish Ferries cat. There was talk last night of bad weather and having to go on the slightly slower ferry but this morning it was all blue sky.

Early this morning was a mixture of low cloud and heavy rain; very different from the sweltering 95 degrees that we left  behind in New York on Friday. But now only a few hours later looking out over the Atlantic from the southern end of Galway Bay there are swathes of blue sky. We narrowly escaped hurricane Earl in America so whatever weather Ireland chucks at us will be far less dramatic. Ireland’s west coast has some of the most stunning scenery in Europe. There are motorways and fast dual carriageways criss-crossing the country that have been built since Ireland joined the EU, but here on the west coast the pace is slower, the roads twisty and undulating. The view is never anything less than stunning as you drive along the coast.  It’s one of the world’s great scenic drives, as dramatic as the California’s Pacific Coast Highway. But before we head inland to Galway and then pick up the new fast road to Dublin we’re stopping off in Lisdoonvarna for the annual matchmaking festival where we shall meet County Clare’s very own cupid – the amazing Willie Daly, master matchmaker. Anyone in Lisdoonvarna will be able to tell you where to find Willie Daly. He’ll be in his ‘office’ in the Matchmaker Bar, the epicentre of matchmaking in the town. White hair swept back, thick white and grey beard, Daly has been pairing up folks for 43 years. His father and grandfather were both matchmakers but Willie has taken the art to a new level. And according to Willie it is an art, stirred in with a bit of experience and luck. ‘You can tell when people are right together by their physical compatibility,’ explains Daly. ‘The psychological and emotional bit is not quite so easy,’ In front of him on his wooden table is a six-inch thick wad of papers loosely tied to together by a piece of string. This tattered bundle is a cross between bible, handbook, archive and accounts book. Within are the secrets from three generations of matchmakers. Willie Daly has been responsible for around 2,000 trips down the aisle. Matchmaking started because rural farmers had great difficulty in meeting potential partners because there was barely any time for them to leave their crops. So to help, special matchmaking festivals were held. Lisdoonvarna’s modern matchmaking festival is the biggest singles’ event in Europe and lasts for the whole month of September. There’s dancing throughout night and day and of course many pints of Guinness pass across the town’s many bars. And those in search of love don’t just come from Ireland and Europe. This year Daly is expecting a women’s rugby team and a group from Japan. ‘You find that many Irishmen rather quiet early in the evening and it’s a problem to get them talking. But then later when they’ve drunk fifteen pints of Guinness you can’t shut them up and that’s when the proposing starts. ‘I can’t imagine matchmaking working like it does here anyway else in Europe. We Irish are relaxed, live spontaneously and like a drink to loosen up,’ says Daly. Many of the other Europeans are too repressed and introverted. The happily married members of the Fiesta World Tour team wave a farewell to Willie Daly and the group of lonely hearts already queuing up for an audience with Lisdoonvarna’s Mr Cupid. Leaving Lisdoonvarna’s lonely hearts we hit the N18 to Galway and then after a few miles take the new motorway towards Dublin. It seems as though our pair of Fiestas are chasing the storm clouds as we run away from the blue skies over the Atlantic coast and aim instead for the gloom to the East. The pace of life has changed enormously in Ireland over the last few years. This 200km drive from Galway to Dublin would have once been a morning’s drive over chipped and crumbling roads. There wouldn’t have been much traffic, perhaps Patraig rumbling along on his old Ford tractor on his way to the pub. The volume of traffic is heavier today, but it’s free flowing and fast. Those old country roads are still quiet if you fancy taking the low road and properly seeing rural Ireland. Those who haven’t seen Dublin since the 1980s will be even more amazed by the progress. Or is it progress? A motorway curls around to the west of the city and a new tunnel leads to Dublin dock and the river Liffey where we’re meeting Pearse O’Loughlin from Ford Ireland. O’Loughlin is wiser than his quests and is equipped with a large umbrella. We spot him standing next to the newest bridge over Dublin’s river. Opened only last year, this modern white suspension bridge is named after Irish playright Samuel Beckett. The Liffey, grand that it is, unfortunately is not long enough to need the number of bridges required to give each a name from Irish literature. Wilde, Behan, Joyce, there are too many of them. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will take Irish Ferries’ high speed service to Holyhead. If the rough weather persists we’ll simply take the slower ferry. It’s Ireland, there is no rush.

Down the street at Yankee Stadium, New York’s top baseball team are playing to a packed September fanbase. Welcome to the last dog days of summer in the Big Apple.

Drive-in burger joints and banks are two a penny in the US.

... by helicopters and white water rafts and even walking the glass plank out above oblivion on glass bottomed Skywalk. But they are all ways to look down at the huge tear in the earth’s surface.

The thermometer on our Fiesta reads 120 degrees (over 50 Celsius). Four hours out of LA, this is one of the hottest places on the planet.

“At one time there were over 4000 drive in movie theatres in the States. Now there are just a few hundred. This one, the Roubidoux, is the oldest operating in Southern California.”

Put the two together and you can bet a stunt man will not be far away.