Antique & Classic Cars Blog
Ideal Touring-Car Classic
Sunday, May 18th, 2008A good friend now living abroad has long talked of touring the US in a 1950s Cadillac. While he owns a couple sports cars, he loves cruisers, the meaty, beaty, big and bouncy vehicles that sail the navigable roadways as much as drive them.
Perhaps the reason that style of vehicle never occurs to me is a difference in the fantasy. He is picturing the plains and desert thoroughfares across the Heartland and West, roads so long and straight they disappear from view, front and rear, due to the earth’s curvature and not bends or obstructions, natural or manmade. He’d have Elvis on and the top down, the needle hovering around 80 all day long.
My touring fantasy is more narrow roads and hilly to mountainous terrain. For this only the nimble car will do. I imagine the incremental rise in engine note downshifting into sweeping turns and blind switchbacks, the view ahead a surprise to be revealed after each stand of trees or hillside goes past.
Obviously, these two visions require different wheels. (Let’s pretend gas is cheap. Prius touring doesn’t cut it as a fantasy.) His choice feels about right for the long desert highway. Of course Vanishing Point and Gumball Rally air out some other choices, but they’re racing around, and we’re talking cruising. Would a Challenger be as fun as a Caddy for that?
For my mountain tour, I’m thinking an E-Jag with a tight suspension and good, modern tires. A coupe would look great and have a bit more rigidity, but the drop top has a trunk to hide some small luggage. Either would be just fine. The car was built for such work and nothing looks better parked on a scenic roadside than a Jaguar E-type.
Anybody got another car you’ve always dreamed of taking off in for an extended tour?
5 Responses to "Ideal Touring-Car Classic"
For me Kris, being an Olds type of guy, I could see myself doing a long plains-type cruise in a 1938 Olds sedan. It would look a lot like this:
http://www.fantasyrides.com/www.fantasyrides.com/photos/38olds6.jpg
but with a red paint job.
That would just be the beginning. I’d take the original chassis, sell it to a restorer, and put this body on a modern “orca” impala chassis. They’re still plentiful in the wrecking yards, and the after market chassis parts for them are everywhere. Done right, you could end up with a highway cruiser that glides along the interstate, yet still feels tight and crisp.
For engine, of course, I’m going with an Olds 455 V8 (Not the belly button Chevy 350) and a Turbo 400 equipped with a Gear Vendors overdrive unit. These engines are ideal for highway use, and properly set up, will literally loaf along at 75mph, yet take off when you stab the throttle.
Air, cruise, power everything, GPS, full boogie stereo with Sirius radio. Halogen headlights.
It truly would be cruising in style. I think it would be ideal.
Plus, check out those rear suicide doors! 
I think you’ve had this vision in mind. With each passing year, I understand the street-rod/cruiser approach a little more.
A junior high teacher who was part of the “backpacking club” I was in as a lad had a ‘68 Olds 4-door sedan, gold with black top, which he called the lead sled. He’d take about half the kids in that and the other teacher-sponsor took the rest in his Econoline van. Though the vintage rod you link to is cooler, there is something appealing about a big, low, smooth American sedan eating up highway like a land whale.
Had a Chevelle noisily blast past me the other day and couldn’t help but think, if my classics only returned 10 mpg that would sure take a lot of the fun out of driving them.
Yeah, it’s belt-tightening time. I hope between the Dow-Jones’ deceivingly high numbers and the gloom and doom situation in housing and mortgages that a massive wallop doesn’t come down on us. Four bucks a gallon at the pumps ain’t helping that one, even if we have ourselves to blame for over-consumption.
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MotorMouth Kris Palmer, freelance auto writer and editor, blogs about vintage cars, the collectible auto scene and just about anything else that goes vroom.
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