Road Trip Gems

There are times when you are interested in locating a top automotive museum to see some classic cars on display in probably better shape than they left the assembly line when they were manufactured.  It is amazing to see how beautiful these older cars can be.

Then there are the times when you are just in the middle of your journey and you come across some automotive gems in the rough, so to speak.

These cars are not restored, although you might wish they were.  But even so they bring back memories of an era when their design brought people alive with dreams of driving them everywhere and anywhere.  This Cadillac had to have been considered quite the epitome of luxury and stylish in a very futuristic way.

There was a Triumph TR4A slowly corroding away, yet it still had plenty to say to anyone who came across it about the English sports car era.  These were the kinds of cars that sparked imaginations of middle aged and young drivers alike.  Sure they were finicky and had electrical systems that could drive a person crazy, but they also had a top-down soul that begged for a warm spring day and a tree lined country road where a driver and his girl could feel the breeze and catch the sparkle of the sun as they were lulled into a blissful movie of life to the tune of a four cylinder motor with a muffler that allowed it to rhythmically complement the road.

A rusted frame that once supported a body that not only kept people out of the weather, but allowed them to mark miles and travel in time that would never had been possible before the automobile.  A frame that once had an engine and transmission – pushing tires along a rod with a humming sound that signaled to the passengers that they were going somewhere.  And it really didn’t matter at all where.