AILING DOWN the northern Italian autostrada across the Dolomites at warp speed in a Volkswagen Sharan TDI early one evening last summer, my family and I were plenty impressed. Not just with modern diesels and mountain-climbing gobs of torque, and not just because we'd never before clapped eyes on the spectacular Alpine range we were passing through, with its steep, craggy slopes and chiseled precipices of sun-bleached stone papered heavily with hundreds of thousands of tall, thin, spiky, green trees and laced with ambitious, architecturally wondrous bridges and elevated highways. It reminded us of the wonder of nature and the resourcefulness of man, especially the oft-forgotten skill of Italian engineers. It also reminded me of a certain oft-forgotten 1979 Triumph I own, whose namesake, I recalled for the assembled more than once, was these self-same mountains. I'm told I can be a little dull that way.
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