The Maple Mille is my favourite car event of the year. It’s an annual low-cost 1,000-km (600-mile) classic car tour through little backroads across Ontario. I’ve done it three times now in three different classics and loved it each time. But there’s a question for the 2019 Mille looming: What car should I take?
Option 1: Cletus-Vette!
I took my own 1970 Corvette on the Mille last year. It was absolutely brutal. It was hot, earplug-levels of loud inside, drained my wallet as it drained its 93-octane tank every 2-hrs, but damn it was an adventure. The pros are that it is a done and ready car that’s proven to be reliable. The Corvette is hellish but it functions flawlessly. It’s ready to go at the turn of a key. The cons are that it’s pretty crazy to drive for 1,000-km in a thing like this and I would need to find a co-pilot crazy enough to do it with me. My last co-pilot said never again.
Option 2: Buick Electra
Land barge vacation! This car belongs to my friend Matt (on here as TheBlacktopExperiment) and it is a lovely old boat. It’s reliable, quiet, and sumptuously comfortable.The polar opposite of the Corvette. We’ve taken an 800-mile trip in it before and it performed great. The pros of this option is the unrivalled comfort, the proven reliability, and the fact that Matt is going and needs a co-pilot anyways. The cons of this plan is that He is VERY picky about the car and will not under any circumstance let me actually drive it. So that means 1,000-kms of me being a passenger on the prettiest roads in the province. Doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that but maybe it’s all a bit too easy?
Option 3: Borrowed MGB
Spoiled for choice that I actually have TWO friends with MGBs that I may be able to sway. I may convince one of them to come along on the Mille with me or entice them by letting them have my Stingray for a weekend. The pros of this option are that I would get to drive a classic I’ve never driven before, I think the MGB is a great car for sporty touring, and the gas bill would be lighter. The cons of this whole deal is that there’s no guarantee any of them will be dumb enough to go along with my scheme!
So those are my three options, which do you think I should do?