Fun Drives

Hi all. I just joined Ferrari Chat a couple days ago and have enjoyed reading all of your posts. So I figued I'd throw a question out there. I have a week to kill (this week) and am thinking about doing a road trip in my 246GTS. The question is where to go? I'm from the east coast, where great driving roads are plentiful. I don't know as much about places in the midwest. A friend mentioned Deluth and the north shore of Lake Superior as being fairly nice. I've also thought about the Ozark Mountains in Missouri. Has anybody ever driven through either of these places? Any decent roads? Or are there other places that have excellent driving roads that are within a 1-2 day drive?

On a related note, I haven't taken my car for more than about 200 miles in a day before. It's in great shape but I'm not sure how these older cars manage long distances. Any reason I should be concerned about damaging the car by putting a bit of mileage on it (hopefully I'm never going to sell the car, so I'm not worried about keeping the miles low for resale value...)?

Thanks for any thoughts.

--Jenny

 

Jenny, welcome to FChat. Glad you found us. I put your name already on the list for the Saturday drive...

If maintained properly these cars love to be driven. Last year a 166MM made it all the way from Chicago to Monterey. Accompanied by a 308. Does that answer the long distance question?

 

Hi,Jenny! Just keep posted here on the Chicago Section of FChat. We always have a drive of some sort going on. Quite a few Fall Drives are already planned,or in the Works. Hopefully,the Weather will cooperate,as it has all Summer....

 

With a few notable exceptions,* you have to drive a ways from Chicago to get to the good roads. The area around Chicago itself is just too built up to stretch the legs of a car except on the expressways, and a lot of the countryside once you get out of suburbia is pretty flat, with secondary roads laid out in square grids. But if you're looking for a multi-day trip, there are more options. I have never been to Duluth, but I know that the roads in southwest Wisconsin are phenomenal. (Plug: see this thread about an upcoming tour up there: http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75420) I imagine they continue that way to the north, so at the very least, once you get past Beloit or so and get out on some country roads, the trip TO Duluth would probably be a blast. North of Duluth along the lake shore is probably pretty nice too, but you are really out in the middle of nowhere up there.

Similarly, I have not been to the Ozarks, but last summer some friends and I did a road trip down through the far southern end of Illinois, and the roads down there, down around the Shawnee National Forest, are also great. Oh, how I longed for my Maserati as we muscled our rental Mercury around the sweeping curves and up and down the hills! It is a place where wild Italian cars can run free, as God and Enzo intended.

Chuck King

* See these threads:
http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31738
http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58188

 

LOL! Chuck,YOU are THE MAN!!!!!!....

Arizona has some Great Roads for doing that....lets all leave right now!!!...

I tore up a Nissan Maxima driving back and forth from Phoenix to Las Vegas and back last Summer ('04) No,I didn't hurt the car...but,she did well over 100 MPH almost the WHOLE Way!!!!....