Road Warriors (Is it an adventure if you drive a touring car?)

clarence2

Member
With apologies to ADV:


Could we discuss touring cars here?

Seems within scope:

I think overland travel, if I can define it, is vehicle-based adventure travel. It doesn’t need to include 4×4 off-roading, nor camping. Overlanding means you’re getting in a vehicle or getting on a motorcycle and you’re off exploring some new locations, some new country, some new state that you haven’t been to before.

 

BritKLR

Kapitis Indagatoris
Just getting out on the road with anything is a life experience. Some of our most memorable adventures happened with rental cars, roadmaps, roadside lunches and seeing America. Living off the back of a moto or out of the trunk of a 45 year old temperamental british sportscar for 2-3 weeks can sometimes be more of an adventure then crossing a mountain pass/river/trail. It doesn't matter what you drive, its the fact your out there doing it. Cheers.

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BritKLR

Kapitis Indagatoris
If there is a will, there is a way......intrepid car campers!.....15 years ago while trying to impress my soon to be wife of my off-roading/overlanding manhood in my hardy samurai, I was slowly climbing up a steep pass trail in Moab and as we come around a shelf trail near the top what do we see........a convertible Volkswagen Rabbit sitting on an outcropping and a dude doing yoga.......how the hell did he get up here? Lost some “he-man cred” on that one since that’s the same car she drove in college.

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MTVR

Well-known member
We had the adventure of a lifetime, doing the European Delivery of my wife's custom-ordered BMW Track Pack car. Dinner in the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Rome on a Vespa scooter, Oktoberfest in Munich, Liechtenstein, over the Swiss Alps into northern Italy, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, Ducati, and MV Agusta in northern Italy, a long weekend in Venice, Salzburg, wine and desserts in the world's most famous castle, Porsche in Stuttgart, maxxing her car out against it's 155 mph speed limiter on the German Autobahns, driving the world-famous Nurburgring at triple-digit speeds in it, and then sending my wife on a 200 mph lap of the Nurburgring in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS race taxi driven by Sabine Schmitz...20141002_065419.jpg20141009_092926.jpguntitled1.pngidNjM4MTMyMTlkOTFhYzI2YQ==-a812f60f4b88d1157a5bcf58e8d4fb9c.jpg
 
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WOODY2

Adventurer
Sir you do know how to live a
We had the adventure of a lifetime, doing the European Delivery of my wife's custom-ordered BMW Track Pack car. Dinner in the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Rome on a Vespa scooter, Oktoberfest in Munich, Liechtenstein, over the Swiss Alps into northern Italy, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, Ducati, and MV Agusta in northern Italy, a long weekend in Venice, Salzburg, wine and desserts in the world's most famous castle, Porsche in Stuttgart, maxxing her car out against it's 155 mph speed limiter on the German Autobahns, driving the world-famous Nurburgring at triple-digit speeds in it, and then sending my wife on a 200 mph lap of the Nurburgring in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS race taxi driven by Sabine Schmitz...View attachment 607456View attachment 607457View attachment 607458View attachment 607460
We had the adventure of a lifetime, doing the European Delivery of my wife's custom-ordered BMW Track Pack car. Dinner in the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Rome on a Vespa scooter, Oktoberfest in Munich, Liechtenstein, over the Swiss Alps into northern Italy, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, Ducati, and MV Agusta in northern Italy, a long weekend in Venice, Salzburg, wine and desserts in the world's most famous castle, Porsche in Stuttgart, maxxing her car out against it's 155 mph speed limiter on the German Autobahns, driving the world-famous Nurburgring at triple-digit speeds in it, and then sending my wife on a 200 mph lap of the Nurburgring in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS race taxi driven by Sabine Schmitz...View attachment 607456View attachment 607457View attachment 607458View attachment 607460
Sir you and your wife really know how to enjoy life. I've been blessed with doing about half of your adventures, sadly missing the opportunity to ride with Sabine. Kudos for going for it!!
 

AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler
it's a state of mind; run what ya brung!

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I’d say yes, as to the overlanding by touring car, if you go back in time far enough. For a great example, try watching this Ken Burns documentary:

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In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new- fangled "horseless carriage." At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country, all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today. Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson's trip would prove them wrong.

Traveling with his co-driver Sewall K. Crocker and a bulldog named Bud (who wore goggles, just like his master, to keep the dust from his eyes), Jackson had the adventure of his life. He encountered pioneers in wagon trains, cowboys who used their lariats to tow him out of sand drifts, ranch wives who traded homecooked meals for a brief ride on the "Go-Like-Hell Machine," and people who deliberately sent him miles out of his way just so their relatives could get their first glimpse of an automobile. This was America's first transcontinental road trip, and like all road trips that would follow it included the usual mix of breakdowns and flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable beds, getting lost and enduring bad weather — and having a truly unforgettable experience crossing the nation's vast landscape. Throughout it all, Jackson's indomitable spirit and sheer enthusiasm was as indispensable as the fuel for his car. Partway through his improbable journey, Jackson learned that his spur-of- the-moment trip had turned into something of a race. First the Packard company, and then the Oldsmobile company dispatched their own autos from California in the hopes of passing him and gaining the publicity of being first across the nation. Sixty-three and a half days after leaving San Francisco, Jackson arrived triumphantly into New York City and claimed the honor for himself.

Ken Burns and Florentine Films have made a documentary film that follows this historic — and hilarious — journey. Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip is a one-episode, two-hour film, for which Burns teamed up again with writer/producer Dayton Duncan. Tom Hanks is the voice of Horatio Nelson Jackson. Keith David (Jazz and Mark Twain) is the narrator.

Using a treasure trove of photographs Jackson took along the way, and relying on the previously unpublished letters he wrote to his wife from the road (read masterfully by Hanks), the film puts the viewer in the front seat of the Vermont and rides across the continent with Jackson, Crocker and Bud. Burns and Duncan retrace Jackson's entire route to film the same scenery he saw, even mounting cinematographer Allen Moore on the hood of their car to capture the feel of fording streams and climbing rocky mountain paths.”


 

AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler
Although there’s some dispute as to who can claim the title of first cross US drive.
(Header typo in the original story!)

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AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler
Here’s a more detailed text account of the Horatio cross country trip:

The First Great American Road Trip, by Horatio and His Dog Bud
Christopher KleinJun 29, 2012
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In the early afternoon of May 23, 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson and Sewall Crocker slid into the front seat of a gleaming, cherry-red Winton touring car and chugged down San Francisco’s Market Street amid a sea of horse-drawn carriages. The sleeping bags, cooking gear and supplies packed inside the automobile testified to a long journey ahead, but the road trip on which the men were embarking was truly epic—an unprecedented cross-country drive to New York City.

And it all started with a $50 wager.

Just four days before, a bar debate about the newfangled horseless carriages ignited inside San Francisco’s exclusive University Club. While most of the tipplers dismissed the automobile as a passing novelty too unreliable to survive a trip across America, Jackson disagreed. Then, in a scene straight out of Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” someone bet Jackson $50 that he couldn’t make it to New York City by car in less than 90 days. The real-life Phileas Fogg—a 31-year-old automobile enthusiast from Burlington, Vermont, who had given up his medical practice after a bout of tuberculosis—heartily accepted.

Jackson recruited Crocker, a 22-year-old former bicycle racer and a gasoline engine mechanic, to be his Passepartout. Based on Crocker’s recommendation, the former physician purchased a used 20-horsepower Winton touring car for the treacherous journey. Jackson named his new wheels the “Vermont.”

Previous cross-country automobile trips had all ended in failure, and Jackson’s hastily arranged drive was likely to suffer a similar fate. Jackson had little driving experience and less mechanical knowledge, but at least he had his wife’s inherited fortune to fuel his impulsive voyage. Still, American roads were extremely primitive—fewer than 150 miles nationwide were even paved. There were no road signs, road numbers or gas stations, and automobiles were extremely prone to breakdowns.

The Vermont was no different. Just 15 miles outside of San Francisco, a rear tire blew, and the duo replaced it with their only spare. It wouldn’t be their last pit stop.

In the Sierra Nevadas, the Winton waded through streams and weaved along narrow mountain roads never before traversed by automobile. Jackson and Crocker were forced to move boulders by hand. The rocky roads rattled the men like bobblehead dolls and continually sent Jackson’s personal effects—his coats, his fountain pens and even his spectacles—overboard. Wrong turns and breakdowns, such as a broken clutch and a clogged oil line, slowed their progress.

Although Jackson and Crocker were aboard a machine that would help shape the 20th century, they were essentially stuck in the 19th. They relied on stagecoaches to bring new parts and on blacksmiths to make repairs. After they found themselves stranded for eight hours in the Oregon desert, a cowpoke lassoed the disabled Winton and had his horse give it a tow—an equine version of AAA roadside service.

Luck did not seem to be on the motorists’ side. After a leak left their gas tank nearly empty, Crocker set off on a 26-mile bicycle ride to the nearest town. A bike tire punctured, however, and forced Crocker to walk most of the way back with the fuel. It took 19 days for the duo to reach Idaho, where they picked up a traveling companion—a bull terrier named Bud whom Jackson purchased for $15. Jackson and Crocker fitted Bud with motoring goggles to protect his eyes from dust, and throughout the journey the canine proudly wore them from his front-seat perch.

Jackson hoped their new mascot might be a good-luck charm. He wasn’t. Bad directions in Nampa sent them on a 76-mile detour, a team of horses had to extricate the Vermont from a quagmire that had swallowed it up to the floorboards, and Bud got sick drinking alkali water. When the men went 36 hours without eating after getting lost in the Wyoming badlands, Jackson joked that they “were stealing speculative glances at Bud as we tightened our belts.”

As they pulled into Rawlins, Wyoming, a connecting rod to the crankshaft snapped. They waited five days for replacement parts to arrive by railroad from the Winton factory in Cleveland before getting back on the road. On July 1, Jackson wrote to his wife from Cheyenne, Wyoming, “Well the worst of our trip is over.” Not quite. Just hours later, history repeated. The stud bolts on the car’s other connecting rod broke this time, and again they lost five days waiting for parts. By the time they got back on the road, it was July 7 and day 46 of the drive, and more than half the country still lay ahead of them.

Through it all, Jackson somehow maintained his optimism, perhaps thanks to the tremendous reception he received along the journey. In many towns, curious onlookers crowded around to see an automobile in person for the first time. By the time Jackson arrived to a cheering throng in Omaha on July 12, his bar bet was starting to captivate the nation.

Finally, the travelers started to make good time, averaging 150 miles a day. On July 17, they arrived in Chicago and were treated to receptions by city officials and automobile dealers. Three days later, a convoy greeted them outside Cleveland and escorted the Winton triumphantly back to its birthplace. Outside of Buffalo, the road trippers survived a scary accident that tossed them out of the car but caused minimal damage to man, car and beast.

In spite of the fanfare it generated, the epic road trip ended as quietly as it started. The Vermont, its cherry-red finish caked with dried mud, crawled down Manhattan’s deserted Fifth Avenue at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 26. The approximately 4,500-mile journey had taken 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes. Incredibly, given all the problems, Jackson had won his wager with nearly a month to spare, although it cost him $8,000 in the process.

Jackson, Crocker and the photogenic Bud became celebrities, pictured in the newspapers and praised in Winton advertisements. On July 30, Jackson, his wife and Bud headed for home in the Vermont. As it crossed the threshold of the Jacksons’ stable, the exhausted Winton exhaled and, perhaps fittingly, its drive chain snapped in two.

 

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