Having been a part of the JEC's 'Route 66 tour' this summer Nick and Katrina Bromfield report back on a cracking adventure across the heart of America in their Eagle GT;
"As road directions go, it sounded pretty simple; pick up Route 66 at Chicago and follow it all the way to Los Angeles. So it was that we set out along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago one morning in late September heading south-west, together with about 60 other mainly historic Jaguars – 18 E-types among them. Ahead of us 2300 miles across 7 States; through the cornfields of Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma, across the high plains of Texas and New Mexico, the deserts of Arizona and Nevada, and finally down to the lush orange groves of California and the Pacific Ocean shoreline.
So much more than just a road, Route 66 is a national institution which carries along its length the history of the making of 20th Century America – the flight from drought and depression in the 20s and 30s, to the post-war hope and prosperity of the 1950s. Today the road has been replaced by a network of Interstate freeways, but our route followed as much of the old Route 66 as it is possible to do. In places the old concrete still remains, but in others the road has become as ghostly as the towns through which it used to pass. If you’ve seen the movie “Cars” you’ll know the story – thriving wayside communities across the mid-West that died with the coming of the Interstates. Few now remain; a tiny number survive as tourist attractions, some as mere curiosities, but most lie eerily empty, derelict and abandoned.
Our route took us from Chicago through overnight stops in St Louis, Springfield (NOT the home of the Simpsons), Oklahoma City, Amarillo (much singing of “show me the way to...”) Tucumcari (where?), Albuquerque, Holbrook (where??), the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas to LA. With detours we clocked up more than 2800 miles, travelling over 300 miles on a typical driving day but stopping where possible to take in the sights and visit iconic locations like Cadillac Ranch. If you’re of an age to have been a fan of the Eagles in the 1970s you would surely not have resisted standing on that corner in Winslow Arizona (Take it Easy) - we couldn’t!
Our car for the journey was our Series 1 3.8 Roadster, Eagle Engineered No 36. She ran faultlessly throughout, tolerating 91 Octane fuel and 7000 ft altitude, and staying cool in the heat of the desert and in the traffic jams across LA. The only failure was a dashboard bulb on the last evening! Not all cars in the group fared so well, among them some much more modern Jags – the travelling mechanics attended to over 50 breakdowns on the trip. All along the way the car attracted enormous admiration and goodwill, often helping to get us out of trouble when we were lost!
We shan’t pretend it was all easy going – if nothing else, nearly 3000 miles with the roof down in a steady southerly and westerly direction has certain implications for sunburn on the left side of the face, which can be remedied only by heading back East or driving backwards! But at the end of it all, parked up on the pier at Santa Monica with a glass of champagne in hand, there was a real sense of achievement. All in all, a wonderful trip in a wonderful car."
Nick Bromfield
