Meeting your heroes (American Muscle..)
Discussion
I was in California this week for work. My first ever trip to the USA and I was only there for a week so was determined to make the very most of every spare minute I had.
My colleague and I had the Friday off and we decided to hire a car and drive down to Santa Cruz. One thing I've always wanted to do is drive a muscle car - be it classic, or one of the modern versions. I learned about Hertz's "adrenaline collection" several months back and made a booking.. and after a torturous 1.5 hour wait in a queue at the Car Rental building in San Francisco, we hit the road in this:
I have to say the car utterly exceeded my expectations in every way. Fear of an encounter with the highway patrol meant that I never got it up to more than 80MPH but any opportunity for a bit of a bootful I made sure I gave it plenty. It was far more well put together than I expected, felt very upmarket inside, looked utterly fantastic and needless to say the soundtrack was incredible. Pulling out onto the freeway to chirriping tyres and howing Hemi V8 isn't something I'll forget in a hurry.
The only amusing thing I suppose was realising just how cumbersome and heavy the thing was as I found myself picking up the keys to a Vauxhall Insignia at Heathrow about 14 hours after handing the keys back for the Challenger.. I couldn't believe how lithe and sharp the Vauxhall felt compared. It'd have been an interesting (or entertaining should I say) experience throwing the Challenger round a few corners! Economy was diabolical too - we averaged about 22MPG (UK MPG I should add) even though we were mostly just cruising around at 65MPH on the highways.
If you ever get the chance to drive one.. do it. I just need to see about getting one imported now.....
My colleague and I had the Friday off and we decided to hire a car and drive down to Santa Cruz. One thing I've always wanted to do is drive a muscle car - be it classic, or one of the modern versions. I learned about Hertz's "adrenaline collection" several months back and made a booking.. and after a torturous 1.5 hour wait in a queue at the Car Rental building in San Francisco, we hit the road in this:
I have to say the car utterly exceeded my expectations in every way. Fear of an encounter with the highway patrol meant that I never got it up to more than 80MPH but any opportunity for a bit of a bootful I made sure I gave it plenty. It was far more well put together than I expected, felt very upmarket inside, looked utterly fantastic and needless to say the soundtrack was incredible. Pulling out onto the freeway to chirriping tyres and howing Hemi V8 isn't something I'll forget in a hurry.
The only amusing thing I suppose was realising just how cumbersome and heavy the thing was as I found myself picking up the keys to a Vauxhall Insignia at Heathrow about 14 hours after handing the keys back for the Challenger.. I couldn't believe how lithe and sharp the Vauxhall felt compared. It'd have been an interesting (or entertaining should I say) experience throwing the Challenger round a few corners! Economy was diabolical too - we averaged about 22MPG (UK MPG I should add) even though we were mostly just cruising around at 65MPH on the highways.
If you ever get the chance to drive one.. do it. I just need to see about getting one imported now.....
What surprised me is the enthusiasm I got from folks when out driving. We had breakfast in Santa Cruz this morning (well technically yesterday morning) prior to driving back to drop off the car and two people stopped me to ask about the car... I had to explain it was a hire car but that I was loving it! The sort of enthusiasm you just don't get from randomers here in the UK!
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