The thread about the "Top Gear"-challenge has inspirated me to open a chapter about the things, you really would experience with your cars or with a personal dream-car.
As I wrote, it's totally uninteresting and irrelevant, what you would like to see in TV. The only relevant things in the life are, what you want to do by your own and/or with the partner, friends or the family. Fuck for the TV, the real life is the main thing.


I'll start with my dream: I would like to take my K 70 to the USA. After driving around in Manhattan (but with a reachable and payable parking-lot somewhere in Big Apple ), I would love to drive down the Classic Route 66 and then staying for a while in San Francisco.


It's not an impossible dream. I just need enough time and -surely- some money, too.

This sounds interesting, too:
http://www.motorevival.de/en/hamburgshanghai.html
But the infrastructure în these countries is different and you are together with other teams. The USA-trip, I would do with my wife. And perhaps a Dutch friend, who has the same dream.
But we have similar problems: we've put our money in houses. And the friend has two little children. So it may take many years, until we can think closer about it...

Well, the one thing I would really enjoy doing with my Expedition would be desert running. But unfortunately North Carolina is in short supply of desert terrain. I’ve been in mud, snow, gravel and have waded through mountain streams. But never sand/sand dunes and the like.

Something like this ...
A Expedition used for US Army desert driver training in the Arabian desert.
The landscape is beautiful, North Carolina has nothing like this ...







The nearest place I can think of would be the Baja desert (California and Mexico) and of course there are the Sahara and Arabian deserts and others, but they’re far across the pond.

Another thing would be to tow a Airstream trailer ...

http://www.airstream.com/products/2009-fleet/travel-trailers/classic-limited/index.html

... as I have always wanted one for my vacation travels, but they are extremely expensive. So I guess I will be staying with my cheaper Fleetwood trailer.

Like ingo said, those two things can be done, but not without some time and financial backing, which I don’t have either at the moment.

You would so get stuck and/or roll over if you did that...

A few years ago we went to some sand dunes at Lake Michigan (very tame compared to what you're talking about) and it was very hard to maneuver the rented Jeeps without help from professionals, and even then some people messed up. You really have to know what you're doing.

I am already aware of that ...

I have never driven in a desert before, so my off-road knowledge of how to "attack" a sand dune is severely limited, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn. I wouldn’t go by myself.

I just think it's a little silly to risk wrecking your car for something like that, especially for such a new, shiny, spotless car with no chips or dents or rust or anything like yours. Plus if you don't have the experience then I defintiely wouldn't do it. Maybe you could buy some 500 dollar wreck to pratice on so you don't wreck the nice car, but then again this all brings up the whole topic of fancy/nice SUVs and offroading. I mean in a vehicle as new and spotless as yours I wouldn't even consider going off of a regular road if t were me, I really don't even see the point of SUVs that nice in the first place becuase if you offroad with them you'll wreck the paint and trim and such, not to mention the possibility of dents and rollovers... the whole luxury SUV segment just seems like an oxymoron to me.

Blue Ridge Parkway with a 1957 Mercury Monterey Turnpike Cruiser 4-door hardtop with retractable Breezeway rear window. Nuff said!

@taxiguy: Naah, it's not a too big danger for a car to get damaged by rolling over in the sand-desert. Sand is smooth.

Much more often the cars are getting broken by sand inside the technic. Carburator and especially the engine doesn't like sand inside.
And you can forget the paintwork and the windows, when you are coming in a real sand-storm.

My and my wife have made such a trip. In 2006 we made a round-trip across Namibia, 4500 km totally, 3000 km of them on "natural" ground, gravel, sand and even salt (the "pad" -Namibian slang for a natural road between Swakopmund and Terrace Baai along the Skeleton Coast is pure salt).

Btw.: as I wrote in the database, we've seen the making of that low-class-movie: http://imcdb.org/movie.php?id=884001 . But this is a different story.
Anyways, the last kilometers to this lodge was goundless sand either. 4x4-experience was helpful to reach that place.


Sure, the wearout of a car, you are using for such a trip, is immense. We had a 2003 Nissan Hardbody-Pickup as a rental car. It was a good choice. All other tourists we met, who drove also on "natural" roads (but surely not the whole distance like us), and who had normal cars like a Toyota Corolla or a VW Polo, had damages at their cars. From a broken plastic-part of the bumper up to a bursted engine. This happened to an older couple from London, when they tried to pass a "rivier" ("creek" in the USA). "Suddenly there was a big bang and the oil was everywhere on the road", the guy has told us. A big stone has smashed the oil-sump.

But our big 4x4-Pickup needed maintenance after our vacations, too. The crack in the windscreen was getting bigger, one tire has lost air, gearbox and the slip differential have made louder sounds and so on.


@Neptune: when you are driving across groundless sand, you have to switch on the LSD, the limited slip differential, have to put some weight on the axles (some people sitting in the back on the load platform are helpful), take the second gear -not the first one!- (sorry, I don't know, how it's with autimatic transmission).
Then go on with much gas and a lot of sway. Start on the last meters of hard ground, not in the sand. No stopping at all! Even if the car is slippering for meters from the left to the right and back, don't stop! With full gas going on!
A perfect place for that experience is there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sossusvlei
To go there, you have entering the National Park and have to going for over 60 km on gravel and a bit (very bad) asphalt-road. The last 5 km from the parking-area to the dunes are such a groundless sand. The tourists, who are anxious to drive on the their own of didn't have a real good 4x4, can use a shuttle-service with old Unimog's.
We wanted to do it on our own and we made it, resp. my wife made it. She drove all the 4500 km. She likes to drive RHD-cars and the liked the 4x4-Pickup-experience. It was the first time for her to drive such a car. I just gave her some tips for the off road-driving, which I had learned 16 years before at the Bundeswehr.

I just cannot remember the name, but there is a race from London to West Africa (Ghana?), where only cheap, old cars are allowed, max. buying price 200 Pounds, if I remember correctly. In Ghana they will be sold for a humanitary organization.

This could be a fascinating trip, too.

I thought you meant actual dreams. Whenever I'm driving in a dream, the brakes never work. The pedals all mushy, and even if I put the transmission in park and turn the engine off, the car keeps creeping forward.
It hasn't happened in a while, but I used to have to drive while sitting in the passenger's seat a lot.
The full dreams would be perilously confusing to relate, so I won't.
I have on topic things to say, but later.

Dream 1:

A trip to Detroit and surrounding areas. I would like to see as many historical places as possible. I would start with Greenfield Village in Dearborn where I could visit the Henry Ford Museum, Automotive Hall of Fame, Ford Research Center, Henry Ford Library and of course the historical village itself. From there I could take a bus and make a Ford factory tour. While at Dearborn a visit to Ford's Fair Lane estate would be a must.

Back at the Detroit I would go to one of those automotive historical tours which are held. One of the destinations would be Ford's Piquette plant where the first Model T's were made before a move to Highland Park plant. In the center of the city is ofcourse the water front and the GM's Reneissance Center which has a display of classic cars at the first floor. Also nearby is King's store of rare antique books which I think is one of the biggest in America. If I'm brave enough I risk my life and go sneaking in the abandonded factories eg. Packard plant at East Gr. Boulevard.

Dream 2:

I would take my Continental Mk IV with me to the US. I'd have plenty of time (let's say two months). I would drive slowly from coast to coast visiting small towns, enjoying the landscape and meeting new people. Starting from California coast roads and ending in NY City.

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But in order to make trips like these one has to have a good financial backing and sufficient amount of time. Dreams are hard to fulfil

If you go to Detroit don't forget the Renaissance Center, very good place to see new and classic GM cars and a cool building/complex as well.

I didn't forget it

Oh yes I see it now