Foster48x wrote: maybe Chuck Norris will sell you his Fiat... Its so terrified of Chuck it fixes itself .
Rick
I'm out of his reach and I plan to stay that way, but you seem a little to confident, making fun of Walker, to be a normal citizen....you must be Trivette
6,000 km in 45 days - wow! Besides finding the right car, selecting a route that avoids Interstate Expressways but still yields decent average speed; that's going to be tricky.
You won't have any prospective buyers questioning the car's reliability when in New York!
You should talk with Alvon, aka "Iron Butt". Hey Ace, how long did it take you and Maureen to get home via Portland from FFO? That's about the equivalent distance.
6000 km in 45 days is a very relaxed pace (about 80 miles per day on average). I drive more than that on my daily commute back an forth to work each day! I'm assuming that you're planning to take in a lot of the sights and adventures along the way. For example, it looks like your route goes through Glacier/Waterton and Yellowstone National Parks. You could easily spend a week in each of those areas, and the same could be said about many of the other areas that you'll be passing through.
When we drove cross country in our '70 spider in July 2008, we covered almost 8000 miles (13,300 km) in 19 days, but a lot of the driving was rushed. The route eastward was the southern route (LA - Phoenix - Albuquerque - El Paso - Dallas - Atlanta), then northward through the Carolinas, and on to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. That was about 8 days, including a relaxing day (July 4) at my sister's place in southern AZ, dinner with With a Fiat buddy in El Paso, a relaxing 1/2 day with the Schefermans in Dallas, and evening with another sister in Birmingham (AL), a brunch with my brother in Atlanta, and a few days visiting my parents in SC and daughter in NC, before making a bee line to the Poconos for a weekend at FFO. The top was always down, unless it was raining, and it wasn't all that bad, even in July. In fact, it was quite pleasant. We did a lot of the driving in the very early part of the day just after sunrise. As such, there's about 6 hours of driving before it really gets toasty, and another 4 hours of daylight from about 4:30 to 8:30, for pleasant evening driving.
For a real treat, when it gets blazing hot, you pull off at one of those quick stop mini-marts in the South that has a walk-in refrigerator, where they keep all the drinks!! Great way to cool off!!
After the FFO in the Poconos, we left on Sunday at mid-day, and were in Oregon by 5 days later by Friday afternoon, caravanning and swithching off driving with Jim and Allen (from Ireland) in their brand new Fiat 500. Along the way, we had a pleasant evening in Dayton (OH), and evening of sailing on Lake Michigan with friends in Chicago, a pleasant evening with Maureen's brother in Omaha (NE), an overnight somewhere in Wyoming, and again somewhere in Nevada after driving out on the Bonnevile Salt Flats in Utah, then on to the beautiful forests of Oregon. Spent the weekend there camping with the wonderful Western annual Fiat Gathering, then took a leisurely 2 days to drive back south to LA, with an overnight at Mike Mudge in Sacramento area.
The trip could have been more enjoyable, of course, if we had been able to take at least twice or 3X the time, and taken in more visits and sights, but I have no regrets for the rushed trip and all the good times that we enjoyed, and all the great people that we shared it with along the way. It was quite a memorable trip. The only problem was my own fault -- an electric fuel pump that overheated because I had wrapped it in sound insulation to silence it before we left home. That happened less than 100 miles from the start, and I had a spare fuel pump in the trunk, so we only lost about an hour or so for the trouble. I did 2 oil changes along the way, and checked all the vitals regularly. Jeff Scheferman helped me with fine tuning the 40IDF carbs at his place in Dallas -- not that they were bad, but Jeff is good with optimizing the 40 IDF's, so I enjoyed the tutorial.
You should have a wonderful trip, and have plenty of time for lots of zig-zagging to take in the sights in your 45 days. If you should expand your trip to southern CA, we would love to see you!
We would love to stop by if your route takes you through Your trip sounds great no matter wich route you take, so the remarks about the availability of FIAT people along the various route options are important considerations.
You would have a better chance of finding a suitable vehicle in Southern California. They don't call SF the foggy city for nothing. Most cars that I have seen out of the SF area seem much more deteriorated rust wise that their SoCal counterpart. I base this mostly on the cars that i have seen for sale on craigslist.
I made a 5000+ mile round trip from San Diego, Ca. to Bethesda, MD taking three days each way in my '68 Fiat Spider.
My intention was to stop at various sights along the way, including the Yellowstone NP off course.
I imagined spending about 30 days on the road and leaving a week for SF and a week for NY.
That should be a sustainable pace, considering I might rest for a couple of days in the most interesting spots...and the problem is also there are plenty of those.
But I think it will be more wise to concentrate on the experience as a whole, and not on the single sights. I'm looking forward to the people I'll meat along, some of them hopefully from this forum
"Google maps" said it was roughly 4,5 - 5 Kmiles, so let's say 6 to be sure. Still 25% less than our friend Alvon aka Ventura Ace.
My disadvantage will be that I'll be traveling alone and with a limited mechanical expertise...and no time to triple check on everything before I head off.
ventura ace wrote:
When we drove cross country in our '70 spider in July 2008, we covered almost 8000 miles (13,300 km) in 19 days, but a lot of the driving was rushed.
I loved reading your story. I'm glad the BS1 was up to the expectations
fiatS2000 wrote:You would have a better chance of finding a suitable vehicle in Southern California. They don't call SF the foggy city for nothing. Most cars that I have seen out of the SF area seem much more deteriorated rust wise that their SoCal counterpart. I base this mostly on the cars that i have seen for sale on craigslist.
I made a 5000+ mile round trip from San Diego, Ca. to Bethesda, MD taking three days each way in my '68 Fiat Spider.
hmmm....well...before I buy my plane ticket the landing spot can always be varied according to the situation...the car availability. Does someone else also has the same idea about the South Cal Fiats ?
833 miles a day ? I hope you weren't driving alone ? What are you ?
Good luck in your planning and keep us posted on the details.
My only recommendation is that on the east coast, you must make sure you hit the Blue Ridge Parkway that covers most of the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. It is one of the most scenic and beautiful stretches of road anywhere. There are also lots Fiat friendly folks along the route as well so help wouldn't be too far away.
SLOSpider wrote:Buy the time your ready I may have my Spider ready to sell you!
What's it cookin' over there ?
Is it the '75 CS1 1756cc you have listed in your signature ?
katsi wrote:Good luck. Looks like you're taking the most booring route possible though.
what would be you're choice ?
I see Texas has a lot of Fiat Spider lovers.
4babycar wrote:Good luck in your planning and keep us posted on the details.
My only recommendation is that on the east coast, you must make sure you hit the Blue Ridge Parkway ....
I have heard about that route but thanks to you I had a good look at the web sites now and it really looks like a road not to miss. The site is excellent: http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/
I see you live just by the northern end of it.
This seems to be the essence of the Appalachian mountains !
And I think mdrburchette might be close to. He was mentioning Winston-Salem before in the thread
I'll have to take the option down to Tennessee, and then North Carolina and up to Virginia.
I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to sense a real southern state and from the ones on my route I guess Tennessee is the most southern I can hope for.
Danno wrote:i think licensing and titling will be difficult. how would that work?
I must say I didn't understand this !??
I think you need a permanent address in California to register a car there. Maybe Mark or Ace can offer suggestions.
Try to avoid the Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive on weekends.
Can I show you some sights in Washington DC? There's a spectacular Smithsonian museum http://www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy/ in the Virginia suburbs if you're an aviation buff. A lovely route from there is Annapolis Maryland, over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, across the Maryland/Delaware/Virginia peninsula to Lewes, Delaware and the ferry across to Cape May, New Jersey. Up the Garden State Parkway to New York metro area. Several Spider owners in that part of NJ, too.
I wonder if there is an east coast guy that wants to buy a west coast car. If that particular situation could be found then you could simply transport the vehicle to them (with the understanding of exactly what your intentions are). They could save money on shipping, and you could save money on purchase. Someone would have to run some figures on that, but I imagine it COULD be done.
I just don't see a good way to get a title transferred to a foreigner's name and have it properly tagged, registered and insured for the trip. Maybe there is some workaround that I don't know about.
Danno wrote:I just don't see a good way to get a title transferred to a foreigner's name and have it properly tagged, registered and insured for the trip. Maybe there is some workaround that I don't know about.
You have a point there, but I know and have heard stories of people here purchasing VW vanagons in europe,touring and then selling before returning home. One would think something similar would be available here.
Definately something to sort out before comming here and being disapointed.
80 FI spider
72 work in progress
2017 Golf R ( APR Stg. 1)
2018 F350 crew long box
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833 miles a day ? I hope you weren't driving alone ? What are you ? 
