Highland call out for tyre service to help £330,000 Ferrari
A £329,000 Ferrari supercar had to call out a mobile tyre service after getting a flat on the North Coast 500 road trip.
Martin Gordon of Inverness Mobile Tyre Fitting received the callout to “a car” on Monday just outside Ullapool.
But to his surprise there was the gleaming red Ferrari 296 GTB.
“It’s not the first supercar or Ferrari I have had to deal with but it was the first Ferrari this year,” he said.
Unfortunately there was no Hex key to remove the wheel.
So undaunted Mr Gordon did a three hour round trip to get one from Gairloch.
“I fitted a new tyre, the sidewall was damaged on the old one. The driver was doing the NC500 on their own. We see quite a few supercars on the route. It’s all in a day’s work for us. It is just another tyre. We operate 24/7 so we see a lot of tyres!”
There was no indication that the driver of the Ferrari was engaged in any improper activity, but earlier this month more than 130 drivers were stopped by police on the North Coast 500 in the latest crackdown on speeders and other offenders.
The operation saw officers from the Highland and Islands Road Policing Unit carrying out patrols in northwest Sutherland and Caithness on the route in response to local complaints.
As part of these patrols, 133 vehicles were stopped including motorcycles and campervans, and a variety of road traffic offences were detected.
Among others, 13 drivers were charged with exceeding the speed limit, five drivers were charged with carrying a dangerous load and one vehicle was prohibited following dangerous defects being found.
One driver failed the roadside drug screening test, and another three drivers charged with using a mobile phone while driving. Advice was given to the drivers of three campervans in relation to their consideration to other road users, said police.
In addition to these, warnings were issued in respect of vehicle modifications, documents, speeding and construction and use offences.
The operations came after three Porsche drivers and three bikers were clocked at speeds up to 142 mph on the North Coast 500 recently.
Another one of the bikers was recorded by police at 139 mph while all the Porsche drivers were doing 99mph.
