Grand rassemblement Mercedes G

A posting on the GWOA forum led to a wonderful trip for four venerable 460 G's to eastern France.
One member of the New forest chapter emailed another asking how good his french was (it is excellent). He in turn contacted two other members from Somerset and Sussex and suddenly there was a "Rally Raid" team of GWOA cars heading for the Mercedes 4 x 4 club of France's "Grand rassemblement Mercedes G" at St Symphorien de Marmagne deep in the Burgundian countryside. The venue is a dedicated off road centre - Les Combes Grandees - and hosts off road national championships. not a place for the faint hearted!!
Some of the cars needed serious work for the trip and much credit must go to thier owners for working long hours to prepare them for what was to be a thousand mile journey.
So the four cars with a combined age of over a hundred years set sail from Portsmouth to Le Harve. There was a 1984 460GDL (the hare of the group), a 300 GDS ragtop turbo (the nearest thing to a lightweight G), a 300GDS with a Saassong Musso 2.9 turbo transplant (smelt sensational when running on rapeseed oil and sounded great in tunnels) and a standard 230GES (super smoth but unfortunatly with a drink problem). The four hundred mile trip down was, except for a sat nav to produce a decent route, mechanically uneventfull although much to the amusement of the oil burners with several stops to refuel the petrol G.
The weekend was an event of two halves.
Saturday was 34C with wall to wall sunshine and an opportunity to be escorted around the site by our hosts. We asked for a an easy non damaging route. Yes it was non damaging but not easy and put a wheel wrong, slide into a deep gully and it would be a trailer trip back to the UK. We then had demonstration rides in a 230GES cabriolet which appeared standard except for rocksliders,recaro seats and a very talanted frenchman at the wheel. The driver was quickley dubbed "Mad Pierre" by all those lucky enough to get a ride. He made the car do things all of us would have deemed impossible had we not experienced it ourselves. The car climed and decended slopes which could not be climbed on foot and could only be absailed down. He reached  angles at which we were convinced that the car would turn over. He did this  with one arm resting out of the window and only one hand on the wheel. When he needed a diff lock there were no hands on the wheel! We have all convinced ourselves that the G is the ultimate off roader "Mad Pierre" proved it.
Following a spectactular night of electrical storms and a particularly good dinner Sunday was 12.5C and wet with a 90 kilometer green laneing route to follow. unfortunatly an error in the pace notes resulted in nearly 70 G Wagens going in the wrong direction from the very first turning. Pandemonium reighned. The local roads and villages were flooded with G's. We were in a party of 8 cars who all drove into one small farm yard, gridlock. The look of amazement on the farmers face and his good humour as all the cars crowded in will remain with us forever.
We had lunch,so very important in France, took part in the photo shoot thanked our hosts for their hospitality and headed north for the ferry. Another 400 mechanically uneventful miles other than a few stops to top up with sans plomp (not gazoil), collect wine, have another excellent dinner watching Italy v Spain and a lunch before boarding the ferry for home on the monday night.
The opportunity to drive your faviorite car, enjoy good food and wonderful company this was the kind of trip that makes life worthwhile