Darting About

Road Trippin’
With Steve McCarthy

How do you go about finding a new car? The ’07 Mustang that featured in some of our longer trips is no more. Victim of a moron who’d never heard of hydroplaning. The good news was everyone was OK. The other good news was that the insurance payout was enough to put a healthy down on something tasty. So, what to get?
More importantly, how to go about picking a car that would not only be a good commuter for Marianne, but would also be a great road trip for those jaunts that we didn’t want to take in the TR? Ya know, stuff like Okiehoma in July.
The “Round-The-Block-Test-Drive” will tell you that you hate a car. The Hyundai Velostar was a case in point. As soon as she sat in it, Marianne HATED the back window and it’s lack of vision. Sure, it seemed like a neat car, but all it takes is one “I really hate that” to kill the deal. The Elantra had crappy seats. At least to me. Same vision thing with the Mazda and the Subaru hatchback made Marianne think it was a “Mom Car.” She was done with kid haulers.
But still the question of a livable road trip car was unanswered. We both liked the Mustang, but having lived with it for some REALLY long flogs, we’d found what had become major irritants. It was too tank like. The seats weren’t that great, needing LOTS of lumbar assistance. It handled decently and had power, but was really just not that well thought out. If we’d had a chance to live with it a week...BINGO!
Why not test drive cars until we found a highly likely suspect, then RENT one for a week? OK, it’s not an original idea. People have talked about it, but other than media types who get a car for a week to test drive, no one I knew had actually done such a thing.
The next flash came when I remembered that Dodge had just hit the streets with their Alfa-in-Amurican-Clothing. The Dart. And there’s a new Dodge dealer in town. So we went for a look see. Nice car we thought. Comfy. Lotsa Bells and Whistles. Doesn’t look like every Camry/Corolla Wannabee out there. The test drive went well, so I looked about to find a rental.

That wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be. Rental companies don’t really care what specific kind of car you want. It’s easier for them to have a lump of “mid size” and a herd of “compacts” and they give you what ever is next in line. This is triply sure at airports. Finally, I got a helpful human who was actually in this country (I think) who told me that their subsidiary, Enterprise, through their local branches would have what I needed. After trying one near buy and getting nowhere, I tried another and struck pay dirt. They had one due in the next day. Two hundred for the week.
The whole thing would work out great because I could pick the car up on Friday, Marianne could have it for work instead of stealing one of the kids’ cars and on Sunday, we could take a road trip. Cool.
We set off Sunday AM for a bit of a flog, letting the road take us where it would. We started up Angeles Crest, wanting to give the new kid a bit of a flog, and discovered that the traction control does a good job on ice. That’s always a good sign! At the back end of Angeles Crest, we kept north on the 14 and stopped for a pee in Land-Scatter and a driver swap. Marianne took over through Mojave and across 58 through the Tehachipis.
“What’s that weird rain stuff?” Mari asked.
“Uh, dear, that’s snow.”
“Uh, ok, what do I do?”
“Just drive and be careful.”
And she did and she was and the car worked fine. By this time, I’d had enough seat time on both sides to know that the seats were pretty nice. In fact, this was a concern. One of the things mentioned in almost EVERY early road test were “lumpy seats.” REALLY? Not that I could tell. I figure that the morons who test these things spend too much time with the donuts and lattes and those “lumps” they feel are the side bolsters that their Hams are slopping over.
This was of course a basic rental. Not many of the trick cool stuff, but essentially the same car as the loaded one we were considering. Reaching the snack bag and the small ice chest was easy, the radio/CD player worked well, and the car was pretty zippy. Marianne was feeling good about it too. Most important that. After all, it’s to be her car.
Past Bakersfield, we kept heading west on 58 and were getting a bit hungry. Good ol’ St. Serendipity was looking out for us as we hit the thriving Oil Town of McKitterick. There was the McKitterick Cafe and Hotel, home of the Penny Bar, a good burger and what smelled like excellent chili.

This place is a worthwhile stop. Just the kind of funky local place we’ve come to love. The bar is the highlight. Everything. I mean EVERYTHING is covered in pennies. Seems the couple who own it had a catch phrase “Why for two cents, I’d…” and eventually they did, buying the place. To commemorate the event, they began glueing pennies all over the bar. Over a million of ‘em. It’s pretty cool.

After lunch, I took over the reigns and kept on 58. This road to the Coast is a great one. I turned off the traction control, put the tranny into manual mode and FLOGGED it. That Dart, well, DARTED. That road has lots of switchbacks and tight curvie bits as well as some good long sweepers. The Dart handled them all with grace under fire. Like anything of Italian heritage (and yeah, I know, the engine is pure MoPar, but it sure acts Italian) it liked the upper rev ranges and needed to be there to give it some umph. The automatic has this semi-manual, shift for yourself mode that will keep it in gear until redline and won’t let you go down a gear if it means buzzing the motor too much. It didn’t take long to make it work. It’s also sequential. A bump forward and it shifts down, a bump back and it shifts up. Easy-Peasey.
We hit Santa Marguerita, headed up to Atascadero and swapped drivers again. Marianne took us over to Cambria where we poked around for an hour or so, then down 1 to 101, and to Santa Barbara. We ate on Sterns Wharf at the Harbor Restaurant. The mussels were great. Then off to home.

We managed about 600 miles and averaged 29 mph, despite the flogging I gave it on 58. The car was comfy and well laid out. Yep, we bought one. Screaming Italian Red with all the gizmos. That alone will take us a few months to figure out. The sat-nav is a Garmin (YIPPEE!), it has voice commands for most everything which is good because although the 8.5” touch screen might be oh-so-hip, touch screens are a BAD idea in a car. You HAVE to look at it to push anything. With knobs, you can feel which one is right. The other good deal is that the controls that aren’t on the screen (and some that are) are also on the steering wheel! Makes ya feel real Jet Fighter Pilot Guy. We got the sunroof, which is cool, BUT took a bunch of headroom away, leaving me wish the seat lowered further. Did I tell you it has heated seats AND a heated wheel? There’s also a lot of other niceties that show that with a kick in the arse from Fiat, MoPar has FINALLY figured out that small cars don’t have to be CHEAP cars!

So, we’re happy with “Tony”. And in fact, instead of watching that Commercial Fest known as the Stupid Bowel, we’re leading a little jaunt to Santa Paula on Sunday.
Now, let's add those Autodelta stickers and confuse folks.