It’s not as if I don’t drive the cars much, but to add to the road trip content, I wanted to write up a couple of road trips I’ve done with my old cars in the past. This is certainly the longest trip I’ve done (aside from the cross-country drive in my VW Golf), at 2800 miles total door-to-door. We drove up through northern California, through Oregon, and up into Seattle to visit Kim’s family, with a side trip up to Vancouver over the weekend.
Archive for June, 2009
Road trip #2 – Seattle and Vancouver flashback!
June 2, 2009
1972 Honda AZ 600 coupe
June 1, 2009I’ve got no childhood stories to relate to this one, but I’ve had a fascination for these tiny Hondas for the last 15 years or so. Price-wise, they used to be the poor man’s Mini, but it seems that solid examples are going up in price, especially coupes in the style of this one featured today. Even the later first-generation Civics seem to run about $4000 – $5000 for a nice example, which I’m guessing is thanks to the recent interest in 1960s and 1970s Japanese cars, as well as our recent $4/gallon fuel “crisis”. It would be amusing if these were displacing the big American boats in people’s classic car parking spot!
Road trip #1 – Yosemite
June 1, 2009Since the whole point of owning and working on these cars is to be able to use them, and because I’m momentarily running out of steam on the Lancia, it was a good time to take off on a short weekend road trip. Earlier in the week, I’d booked a room at the Yosemite Rose in Groveland, CA, which is pretty much the last town on the way into Yosemite on the 120. Nice room, good breakfast, good parking, and since the water was out due to a broken valve, they comped us for the night! (As an aside, I did find a b&b that allows you to rent their Model T or A Fords to drive around, so if you’re feeling spendy check out the Tin Lizzie Inn). Anyway, we dropped the top and left Friday night. The drive went smoothly with us arriving at the inn around 10:30, where we were welcomed by their fluffy dog and cat. Driver’s note: the stretch of the 120 approaching Groveland is twisty fun and well-paved, so make sure your passenger has taken their motion sickness pills or has their wristbands on!
Rusty But Trusty 