Good Ol' Fashion Hot Rod Road Trip!

Great coverage of an event filled day! I will probably never make that trip but thanks to your posts I traveled along with you today! Thank you for sharing it!

 

Thanks for sharing your Road Trip
The cars are great...But it's your gang,
the miles, and the smiles that make it Memorable !
Gotta Love Them Road Trips !!

 

You all are Cruisin'! Enjoy.

 

The final Curmudgeon car belongs to the Colonel...aka Bill-2 or @wstory here on the HAMB. It's badass '32 roadster that screams hotrod from every angle. He's owned the car for 20 years and 170,000 miles. It's been the subject of a number of threads on the HAMB. In preparation for the trip, Bill re-sealed and re-gasketed the hemi. While it was apart, he noticed a significant casting flaw in the intake which received a patch and weld. As well, the T-5 was disassembled for freshening...numerous times. To add to the time pressure, the car fell off the jack significantly damaging the grill and shell (thanks to Danny for that repair)...oh yeah, and if that wasn't enough, the guy that was entrusted with going through the Rochester carbs mysteriously vanished before making a reappearance in the nick of time. Long story short, Bill thrashed on the car to make the trip.

 

I can only hope to be as motivated as Bill when I grow up! Lol

 

Thanks for taking us along on your road trip, and overviews of each car/driver.
Safe travels on your way back north!!

 

When you can, please post a map with the route you've taken, and plan to take, outlined on it. Thanks

 

Will do...but I'll need to get my hands on a paper map and some art supplies.

Today the plan was for a modest 325 (or so) miles. But with the winding roads we chose, and the near 100 degree temps, it seemed longer.

We started with a drivers meeting which was shortly followed by heading out northbound from Silverton on hwy 550, commonly known as the million dollar hwy. It had spectacular scenery, a summit greater than 11,000 feet and a fun road to drive!





The road had lots of twist, turns and switchbacks...it had the look and feel of a fullsize roadrace set at times! Made even better with a string of hotrods driving along.

We stopped at pretty much every viewpoint opportunity...

And the scenery was worth every stop...this road is not about getting somewhere fast. Everyone (not just Curmudgeons) seemed to be enjoying the trip, nobody was in a hurry.

Then there's a couple quick pictures from the driver's seat.

The Million Dollar Hwy is a 25 mile stretch from Silverton to the historical town of Ouray. The buildings in both towns harken back to a simpler and slower time.

 

From hwy 550 we went west on hwy 62 at Ridgeway, to 145 at Placerville, to 90 at Naturito to 191 into Moab and then onto Interstate 70 into Salinas....google maps will show the detail once you zoom in far enough.

It was hot!...pretty much 100 degrees. It seemed everyones car was running 10-30 degrees warmer today between the heat and the climbing

There were no end of spectacular rock formations along the way. And a few more stops to rest and enjoy the scenery.









Tomorrow morning, the American and Canadian Curmudgeons will be going separate ways. I plan to continue documenting our drive back to Canada while one of our Bills (aka @SkyDriver ) has agreed to document the Americans journey home. Tomorrow at breakfast we'll say our goodbyes.

 

I can only imagine the scenery you all saw today and am sure that the pics don’t do it justice. Thanks again for taking us along!

 

Thank you for the updates, and great pictures of your road trip!!! You're seeing some great scenery in Colorado.
Do you plan to hit the Salt Flats on your way north, or are you taking a more scenic route??

 

Thanks for the kind words.. the Canadians plan to go as far as the Salt Flats sign...and we're staying in Wendover tomorrow night.

 

With no guard rail, that's gotta be a loooong white-knuckle drive in the oncoming lane!

 

Plenty of "Kodak" moments, continued Safe Travels!!

 

Good on everybody involved to make this happen.
Thanks for bringing us along.

 

My son lives in Spanish Fork, and works in Nephi. I told him to watch out for you guys on the highway today.

 

Is it possible to have too much FUN? If so, seems as if you folks accomplished that feat.

Carry on.

Ben

 

Great photos and descriptions, I’ve done that million dollar highway in the past and the memories are forever embedded in my mind.
Enjoying following along!

 

I'm taking over the Southbound portion of this thread. I'm not a frequent poster so please be patient.

 

@SkyDriver , where are you? Continuous vantage points, where we'd all like to visit.

 

What a road trip! Man, I want to drive that Million Dollar Highway!

I am impressed that there are so many of you driving those very cool cars on this long of a road trip. That is just way over the top. We are lucky to get 8-10 guys willing to drive 50 miles on a road trip, and our scenery isn't anywhere near that cool. Thanks for taking us along and we are sitting at the edge of our seat waiting for the next installment.

 

What a trip! Thanks for all the updates

 

Beautiful scenery on that section. I must admit I'm not a Cobra fan but if I was out in front on those twisty bits you wouldn't see me for dust. Rowing gears and having a fang.

 

Thanks again for all the great and supportive comments. I feel really lucky and fortunate to have connected with this group. We all spend the days travelling with grins on our faces as we roll down the road in our own brightly colored parade waving at those giving us thumbs up, or passing us with their cameras out the window.

This morning started with a final drivers meeting, during which the Colonel introduced a new way to poke fun at ourselves.

While at the Pueblo Carshow, in the swapmeet area, we found and purchased an old demolition derby trophy. The Colonel, came up with the rules for award. It is kind of beat up and crooked much like many of the Curmudgeons. It is to be presented as the annual "bonehead move or breakdown". To be eligible, the bonehead move or breakdown must occur when we are all together. The receipient is to keep the trophy until we are all together again and a new bonehead move or breakdown occurs. For the first time award it was determined to be a tie. Gordie for the bonehead move (following his "GPS lady" and leading most of the group on a couple miles of very dusty gravel road unnecessarily...and for listening to his "GPS lady as she sent him heading the wrong way on a one way street) and to Wayne for the power steering hose leak/breakdown.



After we all said our goodbyes, the Canadians watched the Americans roll out.

Shortly after, we headed out. We made Salt Lake City our first gas stop, and then it was off to Tooele for a planned shop tour at Streamline Custom Designs. I will add the that a few of our GPS's had conflicting information resulting in another smaller version of the Keystone Cops, but we all finally got talked in for a safe landing.

Donny and his staff were very gracious hosts and took the time out of their day to show us around their shop. The shop was nicely laid out and they did very nice work including a number of very nice muscle cars too new for the HAMB forum.

Very nice metal work being completed on a '36 Ford 3 window.

I think a '64(?) Galaxie 500

A very nice chopped '32 5 window.


And a nice Chev pick up previously biild by Streamline and in for minor repairs.

A mid 40's Mopar being painted for Joe Martin's shop (Iron Resurrection)

After our tour, we posed with Donny before heading on our way. Again, Donny (Donny is 4th from the right in the grey shirt) and his crew are a great group of guys!

 

EXCELLENT and Thank You

 

After the shop tour, we had a late lunch at the Bonneville Brew Pub in Tooele before continuing on to Wendover. The temperature was 105 degrees...and it felt it! We stopped at Bonneville, because, well how could we not?!


And we lined the cars up for a few photos.


This turned out to be quite an attraction for the other tourists, so we enlisted one of them to take a photo of us with the cars.


I just crossed 2900 miles on the trip so far.

I too am looking foward to Bill's (aka @SkyDriver ) update on how the American's did on their trip west and south.

 

'64 Galaxie 500!! You betcha!

Envy you folks.

Ben

 

Some of those pics reminded me of Radiator Springs.

 

Thank You for the report
Seen A lot of scenery in my time, Never that.

 

Love your story and pics.
That Pierce Arrow rear suspension is very much from the horse and cart era.