We all love cars here, right? We love to wrench on them, take them on road trips, do donuts, go off roading, race them, etcetera. There’s no wrong way to love cars (except that one guy on My Strange Addiction). Whatever way you love using your car to have fun is probably the right one. Earlier this week we asked our readers to sound off with ways they have fun in the car. Here are their answers. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading out to try some of these.
We called it Car Tag but it was more like hide and seek. One car load of people goes off and parks somewhere in town and calls the other car with hints about the location until the other group finds them. Back in the days of the brick Nokias and Limp Bizkit.
Suggested by Nick Fee on Facebook
Did a top speed run at the Bonneville salt flats. With GPS, of course.
Turns out the outgoing V6 Tacoma tops out at 115 mph.
Suggested by: Drew Young on Facebook
Doing donuts in the snow, at a hotel parking lot, outside of Denver. I wasn’t then a Colorado resident, and stuff like this was a big deal for a Florida boy!
Suggested by: Rafael Robles on Facebook
Flew into Beverly Hills and drove a used Rolls Royce back to Atlanta. 140mph in AZ and west Texas was fun. Had to stop in Palm Springs for tires where I walked over to the local casino and won enough to pay for my tires. lol. Lots of fun stops along the way. Tombstone. South Fork ranch. Some wacky caves in AZ. Roswell NM. Vicksburg casinos etc.
Suggested by: Jason Joel on Facebook
Drive the Tail Of The Dragon in a ‘90 Miata on 200tw tires.
Suggested by: Nick Dixon on Facebook
Either track days in various cars or living in a camper van full time for three years.
Suggested by: Justin Hughes on Facebook
Just straightenin’ the curves on backroads through Appalachia in an econo-car that sat a lil low and had a lil pick-up-n-go. No destination, just killing time, watching the scenery, and feeling every G force move exactly how I wanted it to.
Incidentally, in the right late summer light, McKee, KY might just be the prettiest place on Earth.
Suggested by: Steven Taylor on Facebook
Florida to California in 3 days in 1998 with my bestie in a Z28 5 speed. I’ll never forget it.
Suggested by: Andre Thompson on Facebook
Rental Fiat 500 Cabriolet in England with my then-fiancé. When I first saw it I kind of winced...I like small cars (especially when in England) but still...it was hardly a “cool” car despite the standard transmission. And seeing as how we were there the week between Christmas and New Years...a “convertible” didn’t seem appropriate.
Somehow though, that little car became the absolutely perfect vehicle for exploring around the English countryside. It never really rained on us and the way the 500 Cabriolet is set up, we could have the top down the whole time while still being perfectly warm and comfortable. I drove the whole time, but I still vividly remember driving down some English country lanes and looking up into the tree canopy...beautiful.
I suppose it’s the time my friend and I decided to do a top speed run in my ‘72 240Z while heading south towards Mexico through San Diego. This happened back in the later part of the 80's, when I was still technically a teenager, but old enough to drink in Mexico.
I was counting up the numbers on the speedo while my friend looked for cops and was keeping me informed of just how much America we had left. Things were getting loud, since I’d accidentally shattered the drivers side window not long before this. But, with the hammer down, we continued on. As we passed 125, my friend yelled out that Mexico was rapidly approaching, so we should start slowing down soon, as we didn’t actually want to drive into TJ.
We still had a couple exits left (this was prior to the existence of the 905, for those of you that know the area), so I kept my foot down and let the speedo climb another 10 before getting on the brakes so we didn’t fly through the border into TJ and getting off at that last US Exit.
For a couple of kids that previously owned VW Beetles, this was a rush. Sure, we were fucking idiots, back then, and this certainly wasn’t the last time we did something like that on a highway. That would be the time we took his dad’s ‘85 Audi 5000 Turbo to 160 on the Silver Strand from Coronado to Imperial Beach., which wasn’t long after the Mexico run. This would have been before the little bridge over the road entering the Cays was built, so there was a really long stretch of straight pavement.
The turbo 5 had been tinkered with and was running 1.6 bar (about 23 psi) of boost, at the time. The aforementioned Z was faster to 100 (yes, we dragged them against each other from the light at the Amphibious Base), but the Audi’s superior aerodynamics (which for 1985 were exceptional), additional horsepower and taller gear ratios let it easily pull ahead at higher speeds.
Anyway, the 5000 Turbo had a speedo that indicated 160 and we pegged it that day. Before everyone gets up in arms about such speeds on public highways, it was at a time when literally nobody else was on the road. We passed no one at those speeds, we were only a danger to ourselves. And considering where we were, we knew the risk we were taking with law enforcement. I’ll admit that during that same time frame, I literally received 4 speeding tickets in that 240Z from the Coronado Police within a month. I was a menace to society!
But on the other hand, I had a lot of fun while injuring no one. The kind of fun that would likely get you jail time, today. But, the ‘80's were a different time.
Ask me about racing a Neuspeed suspension equipped Mk1 VW Rabbit GTi with my Z through the Coronado Cays and discovering what lift-off oversteer was all about, sometime.
Back in high school, middle of winter, going out to a friend’s cabin on an island on Lake of the Woods in NW Ontario. The ice road would get you pretty close to the island, then it was a short walk to the cabin. We would go out to hang out and drink beer, have a bonfire, roast weenies, etc. The usual cabin stuff. We would also often clear off a rink area on the lake and do some skating or play a bit of hockey.
While rummaging in the boat house for something or other, I came across a waterskiing tow rope and had a brilliant idea. Why use muscle power to skate when we had a perfectly good car sitting out on the ice road? (I believe I mentioned there was beer.)
I have to say that being towed down an ice road at 30+ mph, on skates, under a full moon in the middle of a cold, crisp, northern night is totally exhilirating. Lest you say “but you weren’t in the car having fun”, I will note that being the tow driver is just as much fun as being the skater. You’ve got a very wide, empty road, with nice snow banks on either side to catch you if you lose it in a spin. (And you totally will lose it in a spin, because you’re pretty much trying to.) You can basically drive the car as if it were a ski boat, giving the skater plenty of opportunities to show off their moves.
In the light of day, we noticed the number of small cracks in the ice that would - if one’s skate blade entered them - lead to the skater’s leg being torn off if they didn’t let go of the rope quickly enough. So we never did it again, but for that one night it was glorious.
Actually taking it out for a day of proper off roading.
About 10 years ago I bought a Nissan Xterra. I had absolutely no off roading experience. I knew that these trucks were known to be decently capable right out of the box but never really had any intention of doing anything like that with it. I ended up joining an online Xterra group which lead me to a local beginner’s off roading group. One thing led to another, and I soon found myself joining the group for an afternoon trail riding. It was an absolute blast! Both fun and challenging. I was amazed by what my truck could do. Where it could go, what it could climb. The importance of recovery points...*crickets* I can’t say it’s something I do regularly, maybe once or twice a year. But it’s always a hell of a lot of fun to get out there.
I’ve got a group of about 10 friends, mostly from Georgia but some from all around the Southeast. We all meet up every Spring for a road-trip to the melia Island Concours d’Elegance.
It feels like a Top Gear adventure, where we’re rallying up at different meeting points, ignoring the speed limits through empty stretches of middle Georgia, and catching up with other interesting cars along the way. The closer you get to the island, the cooler traffic becomes. Then we’re in for a long weekend of seeing some of the greatest automobiles ever built.
If you haven’t been to Amelia Island before, it is almost like being in a video game. Everywhere you look, inside and outside the show, there’s something incredible happening - a pre-war Rolls Royce at the grocery store, a DeTomaso Mangusta getting its radiator refilled on the side of the road, a DP Motorsports Porsche 935 topping off fuel after a road trip up from Miami - it’s almost surreal. Perhaps my favorite moment with my own car was driving my 1994 Porsche 968 from Atlanta to Amelia, and then sneaking it back to the loading area for photos when the show wrapped up.
This past March, our trip got even more epic. Two former partners of Amelia Island either left or were ousted after Hagerty bought the rights to the Amelia show. R.M. Sotheby’s and Curated formed their own show in Miami the very same weekend, so what did we do? Go to both, of course. Thursday & Friday were spent at Amelia, and then Friday afternoon, we made our way down to Miami to enjoy the rest of the weekend at MODA Miami. My buddies and I were all leaving at different times and making different stops, so it was fun to catch each other on the highway during our drive down.
Probably drive on the track at Sebring in my ‘99 Impreza 2.5 RS. It wasn’t a race or anything, but they let people take their cars out for a lap.
Back in Arkansas at the University of Ark in Fayetteville and when I had first bought the Charger, there was a snowstorm combined with sleet. This was when the car had a 318, so the Dodge had torque but nothing dramatic in the torque department. I drove the Charger to the local mall and discovered how easily I could throw the car into a skid and do donuts in the mall’s parking lot—I’m positive it made me a better driver by gaining experience recovering from skids. And due to the slick parking lot and light rear end of the Charger, to say it was easy to throw the car into a skid was the understatement of the year. I was hoopin’ and hollerin’ like Bo and Luke combined.
Course I had to avoid the curbed islands sprinkled all over the parking lot. If I slammed into one of them sideways, I didn’t have the money to fix the damage as a poor grad student. But WTF, the parking lot was too slick to resist. I practically got dizzy from the donuts that I threw the Charger into. Then more die-hard shoppers showed up at the mall, so I quit while I was ahead—no damage—and gingerly drove the Dodge back to my apartment.
Such a blast.