Cool vintage vehicle road trips...

Wanna know the truth? I ended up being so pissed about the car I sold it. The front plenum hoses blew in 2004 because they were POS garage even Pep Boys would be embarrassed to carry. So I paid FOH my first born child to fix it. Then in 2008, the REAR plenum hoses blew because they were also POS garage. When I asked the service manager at FOH why he didn't replace the rear hoses in 2004 when he did the front hoses, he just shrugged his shoulders and said Ferrari hadn't recommended replacing them. Loved that car, but enough was enough.

 

Sorry to hear about the sour grapes.
Since I don't have any children to offer in trade for car repairs, I'm (happily) forced to enjoy cars without any plenum hoses, fortunately all mine are old enough I can repair them myself.

 

Perhaps the main difference between you and me is seeing me with a wrench in my hand is a scary sight. Grown men have been known to cry. As a beancounter, I have to admit the only tool in my toolbox is a checkbook.

PS In my misspent youth I did fool around with British motorcycles, ah the folly of youth!

 

Interestingly perhaps, but after sharing our aforementioned trip experiences with others, two of my life long European friends with vintage cars, including Hot Rods, have now expressed serious interest in wanting to do a similar trip by bringing their vintage pre-war roadsters over to U.S. and were looking into possiblity to coordinate efforts for all three (and perhaps more ?) of us doing it together within next couple of years.

Both of these gentlemen are hard core vintage car guys and have extensive experiences putting tens of thousands of miles on some of their cars.
One even has a '58 Edsel convertible I brokered to him about 30 years ag and so far he's accumulated close to 150K miles with it.
The other has probably more vintage driving experience, but with bigger variety of cars.

If we manage to pull it off, it should be another epic trip and I'd be eager to hear peoples reactions seeing some vintage American Hot Rods with European plates/registrations roaming the back roads, 2-lane highways, small towns & National/State Parks around westerns U.S.
Maybe another great subject for book or chapter in one some day ?

 

Just finished yet another great +/- 1000 mile road trip, the annual pilgrimage to Monterey.
This year though I didn't have a chance to take time to drive backroads and 2-lane highways as usual and only drove half the trip with the roadster, so I guess it was more about the destination than the travel.
The other half of the trip I got to drive a 365 GTB/4, which was also our transportation in and around all events while in the area.
Not quite as exhilarating ride, but still a great alternative. ;-)

Sad thing (again) was the lack of vintage cars, especially Ferraris, roaming around the peninsula.
Only other vintage Ferrari we encountered "in-the-wild" was another Daytona of our friend who also bring his up every year.

Sorry for lack of photos, didn't have time to take many.

 

I'm afraid we have hit the "cut down all the trees and put them in a tree museum" point. When these cars are worth millions of dollars, they are no longer cars - they are art.

But, I get your point. In 2004, I was staying at the Embassy Suites in Seaside. As I was leaving, a 250 SWB came roaring up, the driver jumped out, came back in a minute and then roared off to the track. You gotta love it.

 

I don't check this area often enough. Want to write a story about this??

 

Hey Ron. Crescent Classic Rally is coming up next week. One of the best Ferrari rallies in NA. There is a dedicated section in the MO section about it. Really a great event. Chris Parr is the organizer. Have you ever talked with him about the event. I think it would be of interest to your readers.

Best,

Steve

 

If you mean me, thank you for asking.
Yes, I've been entertaining ideas of writing about some of my many travels and other (interesting/unusual?) experiences in life, but just don't seem to have enough time between both.
Besides, I've had similar requests before, everything from books and magazines to television, but always felt it might lead to further loss of privacy and "artistic freedom" than I care to deal with. Especially with television, for which I was approached couple of decades ago by a wish to make a show about my restoration shop/work, long before the apparently became popular.

 

I drove my 365GT4 with the wife and two kids.

 

I'll tell you the same thing I told Gerald Rouse when he was alive. Here's a recorder and a bottle of scotch. Let's start drinking and you start talking. We got the drinking part down, but we never got to the recording part!

 

Fantastic! Did you have any problems with ground clearance?

 

Been there, done that, including the drinking part.
Like I mentioned I have some close friends in the film, television & print media production/recording/publishing business offered to do this for decades, but so far I've been able to resist.
Some even have various lengths of audio/video footage, but have agreed not to publish any without permission.
Maybe when I have nothing to loose, better to do or just feel the time is right.

 

You're a wise man. Privacy is like virginity. Once you lose it, you can't get it back.

 

Thanks. Though, latter one wouldn't mind be loosing all the time, right ? ;-)

 

... back to vintage road trips.
Having accumulated another couple of thousand miles on shorter trips since our epic Grand Teton/Yellowstone tour last summer, I've started preliminary planning for a (money & time permitting ?) 6K+ mile round-trip to New York & New England area next fall in my "old faithful" Roadster (see earlier posts for details & pictures).
Although the car is fully capable of handling Interstate Highway speeds all day long, I'm hoping to map out a route with no or only minimal use of those boring "conveyor belts".
I might also have travel partner flying in from Europe. Actually, few have already "volunteered", including an old friend who's a freelance automotive journalist/video photographer/producer and he expressed interest in filming/writing/producing something about the trip, either for print or TV, or both.

 

If you want it in print, contact me!

 

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

 

Well, looks like we're doing (or at least planning to do) another long distance (3000+ mile) vintage road trip next summer, this time from SoCal to Olympic Nat'l Park and back with perhaps at least one 600+ mile detour to visit some friends in Northern Montana.

Once again, to make the trip truly memorable, we'll be driving my "old faithful" '32 PB Sport Roadster and route planning will be based on absolutely minimal (preferably no) use of any "conveyor belts" a.k.a. Interstate Highways.

 

In additional efforts to make (to-and-from) journey as much, if not more memorable part of the entire trip than the destination by itself, we'll look forward to driving smaller (older ?), more scenic 2-lane highways/routes and just like in our previous long distance "vintage travel" trips, hope to find and lodge in some cool old school/vintage hotels along the way.

 

It seems our plans for yet another long anticipated (vintage) “Grand Touring” road trip are coming together with departure date set in few weeks, car mostly serviced/prepped, (scenic) route plans and reservations (where required) confirmed, etc.
Should be about 3 weeks & 3K+ miles of pure (pre-war) vintage driving nirvana.
Can hardly wait.

During the recent annual service and prep for the upcoming trip I noticed I’ve racked up +/- 22K miles with my PB in just past 4 1/2 years and this trip should make it over 25K in 5.
Not bad for a jalopy I built +/-30 years ago from a half a pile of what most would’ve considered just scrap metal (Well, many probably still do ).

 

Another great (a half) day vintage drive today with the Roadster. While the attached picture of approximate route map indicates only +/-120, several small detours, etc included, the total mileage ended up somewhere around 150, of which about half was on those dreaded “conveyor belts”, but the other half up in the mountains more than made up for them.
Just finished a wonderful (takeout) steak & shrimp fajitas lunch and now enjoying lovely dessert of cigar, ice cream & a “Eldorado” in our garden. Life is good !
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P.S. Looks like I need to order a new set of tires before this summer is over, as current ones are nearly worn out (in 3 years !!!).