The life of a car enthusiast usually has a known stopping point. There will likely come a time when you have to hang up your keys. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, as aging is just the human condition! We all have the same destination in the end. However, the journeys you have before you reach that destination can make it worthwhile. What driving adventures do you hope to experience before it’s time to stop driving?
Pete asked this question in the Autopian Slack channel, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I’m at the age where my older sibling and my older friends all have teenagers. Surprisingly, not a single one of them is even remotely interested in driving a car. Only one of them has a driver’s license and he has it purely to get to work and back. What will car enthusiasm look like a couple of generations from now? Do the kids of today dream of wild driving adventures?
I can’t speak for them, but I want to believe my own adventures are only heating up. I’ve mentioned it before, but I look up to Sabine Schmitz as a hero. She was a Nürburgring maven and made going fast look so fun. Schmitz clearly had a ton of fun doing what she loved, too. One day, I want to take a Smart Fortwo on the Nürburgring and see if I could get anywhere near the kinds of lap times she got in a Ford Transit. I’m aware that I’m going to be nowhere near as fast as her and public laps aren’t the full track, but that’s not stopping me.
From there, I have a bunch of different ideas. I’d love to see if I could make a Smart drive around the world like last week’s overland Fiat Multipla. I’d also love to explore Vietnam by motorcycle, experience the unrestricted parts of the German Autobahn, and swing a leg over one of those MTT Turbine motorcycles. I still have parts of America I need to see like the Canadian and Alaskan wilderness, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the tip of Michigan’s “mitt.” Sadly, the Blue Ridge Parkway took a hit during Helene.
Those are just the adventures on the ground. I’d love to fly to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh one year and I’d melt if I somehow found myself at the controls of a jet for even just 30 minutes. There’s also a whole world of watercraft out there that I’ve only just barely touched.
We asked other Autopian writers and got a few other answers.
Rivers: Stelvio Pass – On a bicycle and then in a car.
The Bishop: replicate the movie Rendezvous, but traffic in Paris is so much worse than in 1976 I bet it’s not possible even at 5am on Sunday.
Pete: I’d really like to get through MSF training next summer and put a motorcycle in the garage, and a proper racing school experience is definitely on the bucket list.
Those sound like a blast! Ah, okay, maybe not getting stuck in Parisian traffic. How about you? What’s on your driving bucket list before your grandkids take your keys?
(Topshot: Auto Addiction on YouTube)
I want to drive the length of Japan – from the northern tip of Hokkaido to Kagoshima – taking ferries in between islands where there are no bridges.
In a 1st gen Lexus SC400/Toyota Soarer
I also want to drive the coast of the Iberian Peninsula – from Bilbao to Vigo, down to Porto, then on to Estoril and on to Lisbon – then across the bridge to Almada and onward to Sagres – then eastward to Montenegro & Faro, then inland to Seville, and south to Cadiz and Gibraltar – then on to Marella, Malaga, Valencia and finally to Barcelona.
In a Mercedes-Benz R129 SL500
I just want to head out of my cozy midwestern garage and go on a drive to visit my wife’s family… in Rio de Janeiro. Yes, I’m aware that the Darién gap exists. That’s what “roros” are for. It’s been a somewhat non-sensical dream for a long time, and I refuse to let it go.
Continuing deeper into fantasyland, I would also like to take a boat to Brazil. Find a nice cabin cruiser just big enough to tackle an ocean voyage, yet small enough to again start out here in Iowa someplace.
The next and most unlikely trip would involve getting my pilot’s license, buying a plane, and flying that down to Rio. There’s a local guy I talked to at an airshow a few years back with a just insanely beautiful restored vintage Twin Beech Model 18 who did just that, so it is within the realm of possibility. Of course it would take some kind of lottery-winning jackpot-equivalent event to occur before I can get to work the trip-prep as my current checking-balance might have to stretch a bit in order to afford the latest copy of MSFS.
Own fun sporty car again. My ioniq 5 Limited is a great family car, but fun it is not.
Grandkids take the keys away? What happened to the parents? Are they dead?
Looks like the Wienermobile hasn’t posted a lap time at Nürburgring.
Yet.
Pete! Get off your ass so you can get on your ass!
Hmmmmmok that’s gonna go down as one of those “sounded better in my head” type deals
Compete in Targa Newfoundland.
Over the last 10 years I ended up driving a bunch of the best driving roads in the world, and kinda realize that I want to continue to do this.
I’ve done the Road to Hana, Ring of Kerry, Icefields Parkway, and the Cabot Trail.
The next big one will likely be a PCH tour. I plan to drive the full west cost during one of the upcoming baseball seasons to see all of the west coast teams play while driving north from San Diego. I don’t expect the PCH to be as memorable as the others – I’ve driven it in the LA area a bunch of times and it’s ok. The full package would be cool. I’ll have something RWD and V8 for that trip.
Daily drive a RWD V8 with a manual for at least 1 year. My automotive life could die happy after that.
Did it a few weeks ago. Took my 1990 Pontiac Sunbird from my home in western Kentucky to Detroit, Michigan for RADwood Detroit 2024. I had serious anxiety and lots of reservations before the trip, but RADwood itself was too big of bucket-list item to miss.
The car performed admirably and didn’t miss a beat. I had it looked over and given a relatively clean bill of health at my mechanic’s shop before hand.
The iffy oxygen sensor caused the “check engine” light to illuminate sporadically, but that was it. Oh, and the 35-year-old suspension wallowed and swayed a bit over bumps and such, but we averaged 32 MPG overall and puttered right along.
RADwood was one of the best the times of my life, and the car was a hit there. And, now I have more faith and trust in it for upcoming trips I want to take.
You know I love good J-body content, but this is just wonderful. I’m not surprised she did just fine though; they come from an odd time, automotive-wise, when durability was prized way more than it is now.
I really want to hit a Rally Driving school and learn from a pro.
Whoa, I have checked so many boxes off that I’m now afraid I’m about to die… The big one for me is doing something like a Baja 1000 type race. I’ve done just about everything there is to do on asphalt, but my spirited driving off road mainly consisted of a 2 mile long gravel road I’d bomb down in my Subaru I’d use as a “short cut” to one of my favorite mountain biking spots while at college. …by short cut I mean it added an extra mile and had no posted speed limits, but was way more fun than the straight 35 mph paved road.
I want buy a metallic gold 1999 Avalon with a carriage roof, drive it through the front wall of a Publix, and tell the police the brake pedal caused it to accelerate. Think that would be a fun last fling
I want to cruise Woodward in an El Camino.
I want to run the Tail of the Dragon in a Miata.
I want to run the Rubicon Trail in a Wrangler.
I want to experience Moab in a Power Wagon.
I want to fly across the sand dunes of Glamis in a Sand Rail.
I want to drive the PCH in an air cooled 911 with a targa top off.
I want to lap VIR in a C5 Z06. Then a C6. Then a C7. Then a C8. Then a C5 again.
I know I’ll probably never get to do any of these, even by the time I’m a geezer. But once I get to be that age, I’ll take some solace knowing that I’ve still had some pretty incredible experiences. So while I’m living in fantasy land, I’d re-live the driving adventure of the night I got married.
1979 Ford F-150, 6 inch lift, 35″ tires, a 400 V8 faithfully humming along with the radio, and keeping perfect step with the cans rattling behind.
The wife and I, 25 and madly in love, just bouncing down a 20 mile stretch of backroads, headed for the rest of our lives.
Remnants of Route 66 or the Lincoln Highway in my Mustang. Just driving to drive, stopping where and when I feel like it.
The cops will have to lock me up to stop driving. As far as adventures I will probably miss out on a lot, but at least once I want on a track.
tracknightinamerica.com is the easy button. Have fun!
I had a chance to drive from Tucson to Fairbanks. However the company I worked for at the time, said they couldn’t guarantee I would have a job after 4 weeks off. So stupid me didn’t do it. I still want to drive the west coast all the way up to Alaska.
There’s no limit to what I’d like to accomplish, but a few that come to mind right away are:
Take my 02 Bonneville SSEi on a road trip to Bonneville Salt Flats (Even if I can’t do a run. If I can, 140 or bust!)
Take my 99 Tahoe on a trip to Lake Tahoe, I already took it to Janesville Assembly before they tore it down, even allegedly snuck through some barriers to get a picture by the signage hanging over the assembly line final building exit. So next is to take it where it’s named for.
Take something, maybe my L67 swapped 91 Riviera, to the southern most point in the US in the Keys.
Tail of the Dragon is still on my list for one day, as is Route 66 (as much as one can do these days).
If I ever leave the country, there’s so much more I could think of, obviously. For instance, I would love to drive a VE Holden Ute in Australia, one of my favorite cars I’ve owned was a G8 GXP, it was a shame we never got the G8 ST, I would have re-sold my soul to keep the car forever if it was a Ute.
I don’t have kids (yet? Maybe ever? Partner wants to adopt but we have a lot of other things to handle first and I’m not against it) so nobody to take away my keys so far, but:
1. Road trip tour of US national parks.
2. Nurburgring.
3. Shake the PTSD from my last car accident and get on a track.
The accident occurred at a red light, but I was unconscious several minutes and am still dealing with the effects. Just need to stop thinking I’m going to end up a vegetable if I end up off track and hit a barrier or something.
You will. Sooner or later, your enthusiast side will assert control and it’ll be the right time again – you’ll be happily blasting around the track looking for an opening to pass the slower traffic, all that good stuff.
First time I went down on my motorcycle on the street, I could barely even look at my bike, must less imagine riding again. Once the adrenaline wore off, every fiber of my being screamed “never get back on one of these again.” It was super hard, but I did. And I’m so glad, as the enrichment I get from riding makes the danger worth it.
I want to drive a vintage Porshe 911. And the way I want to drive it would probably mean I have to own it.
I cheated and didn’t have kids, so there will be no grandkids to take my keys away!
But I hope to do:
1. Some proper track driving
2. Some proper off-roading
3. Some driving around Europe
#3 is definitely within reach and I urge you to shoot for it. I was surprised how reasonable plane tickets, rental-cars and private hostel rooms can be, and how easy travel is when you have a smartphone. It’s more fun when you bring a navigator/co-driver of course.
Still need to sign up for lessons in #1 and #2.