Low Cost Sports Car Tours

I personally like the concept of vintage tours like The New England 1000, Barnstorming Maine, and others, and intend to do one someday if I ever have a worthy car and can justify it financially. You pay your hefty entry fee and somebody has organized every detail. You drive on some great country roads in a sports car along with like-minded people (like-minded about cars anyway), stop at nice places for lunch, stay at luxury hotels every night, and have a back-up Mercedes or BMW as well as tow service and traveling mechanic if your car breaks down. It’s a car event that wives actually like. But until I can justify it financially I’ll leave organized tours to the independently wealthy. Meanwhile this past summer I decided to create my own Low Cost Tour (Locost Tour?). It wasn’t “vintage” because I used my 13-year old Miata, and I didn’t have a back up vehicle or a traveling mechanic following me. But I ate nice lunches and dinners every day, stayed in a pretty nice hotel, and drank some great wine … all for a fraction of the price of an organized tour. And my tour even had a theme. My theme was hillclimbs, not the competitive type, but just driving up State Park mountain roads in my Miata. I used a quaint country inn in Wilmington, Vermont as my "base camp" and on 3 successive days in August drove to Mount Equinox (VT), Mount Ascutney (VT) and Mount Greylock (MA). I was at Equinox a couple weeks before the VSCCA hillclimb there, and after driving up the mountain road at 30 mph, I have a lot of respect for the racers who drive up at higher speeds. Anyway, I drove about 750 miles total in four days and consider my personal Low Cost Tour a success. I'll definitely do another one next year.

Did anybody else go on a sports car tour this past summer?

We just did the Coker Challenge, which is more of a TSD than a tour--although I guess you could have forgotten about staying on time and just driven at your own pace. They didn't have back-up cars, but two trucks with trailers followed us.

Entry fee was $250, and that included dinner at Corky's farm plus a nice send-off BBQ. The host hotel was like $105 per night. It was the best hundred dollar hotel I have ever seen.

It is something that I do. For two years my Bro and I met here in spring to travel the roads of Texas to a rental on the coast. This we did in my Spider to add to the appeal. Most of my club events are a 100-300 mile trip to meet up with others at a hotel and do a small tour as a group. Traveling is often solo or in groups of 2-3 cars.
I have a plan on the back burner to tour the country in search of Fiat events and meet up others along the way. If I have enough interest, I would stage a small car show of travellers and local owners at each stop-over.

Cheers Ron

I think I just read somewhere in this month's issue that the Bluegrass 1000 was happenning. Sounds pretty cool.

I love the idea of these tours, but sorry, I'm not a member of the Ferrari/Aston Martin/XKE crowd. When someone puts together one for the MGB/Fiat/Datsun Z types among us, I'm in. I don't give a hoot where I stay, provided it's clean. I'm just laying my head there for a few hours. It doesn't have to be a resort. Just give me challenging roads and some like minded people.

In reply to ddavidv:

I did this two weeks ago and had a heck of a good time. Absolutely unpretentious.

http://www.californiamelee.com/

http://bringatrailer.com/category/event-coverage/ (second listing down)

Wrong coast, I'm afraid.

I think it would be cool to do one of, if not all of the Great Lakes tours.

Okay, since you asked, we love these tours too but think they are too expensive. You can say you saw it here first, as next week we are announcing the Classic Motorsports Orange Blossom Tour, at about half the price those other guys charge. The website is not active yet, so don't go there. Join the staff of Classic Motorsports magazine, March 15-19th, 2010 for a classic car tour of old Florida. We want to show you our neighborhood on this reasonably priced, all inclusive, low-key tour of Florida. Limited to just 30 cars, this tour will start the morning after the Ameila Island Concours and get you to Sebring in time for the annual 12 hour endurance race. The weather is perfect here and as we live here, so we know the best roads and the secret places to see that most tourists to our state drive right by.

Sure we’ll have plenty of car stuff, insider private collection deals and car people, but man can not live by cars alone (okay, some of us can), so our aim is to show you the true history and natural beauty of our state as well. Priced accordingly and very reasonably at $2995 per couple (with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Amelia Island Foundation, This tour is open to everyone, whether you drive a Triumph Spitfire or a Ferrari Testarossa, we want to meet you and show you around. Our own staff will be driving the project cars you see on the pages of Classic Motorsports every issue and will be your tour guides. Two expert mechanics, an EMT, substitute cars in case yours breaks, and on site towing are all included so you can rest east and enjoy the trip.

Day 1 From Amelia Island, we’ll head south by Ferry to our first stop at the Brumos Porsche private collection, where famous racing driver, Hurley Haywood will give us a private tour. From there, enjoy a charming lunch on the famous inland waterway and then over to the St. Johns river for some of the prettiest roads in Florida. After a stop in famous St. Augustine we will head to the offices and car collection of Classic Motorsports magazine. Dinner that evening is at the Plaza (right on Daytona Beach), where we will be staying. Our guest speaker will be automotive racing legend; Peter Brock. Dress for the entire tour is casual, but tonight will be retro-night, so bring an outfit that matches the period your car is from.

Day 2 Day 2 starts with a visit with the Legends of Autoracing. This group that will include the likes of Marvin Panch and Ray Fox will tell us all about the start of NASCAR and racing on the beach at Daytona. After perhaps a little surprise from the World Center of Racing, we head to Ocala and horse farm country. We’ll stop for lunch at one of Classic Motorsports publishers, Tim And Margie Suddard’s favorite “locals only” restaurant and then to the Classic Motorsports test track, where you will be able to see where all our car testing is done and try your hand to see how your car compares. Don’t be surprised if we have a few special cars for you to try out as well. We'll stay at the Ocala Hilton that evening and have dinner with a special guest.

Day 3 We"ll start at the Don Garlits museum, where drag racing legend, Don Garlits, will most likely give us the tour himself. This collection has not only some of the most famous drag racing cars in the world, but a cool collection of other cars as well. Lunch will be at the famous Lakeridge Winery in Clermont Florida. From there we will go to Mount Dora, do some shopping in the famous antique stores which are walking distance from our hotel, the famous old Lakeside Inn. You’ll have some free time this evening to enjoy St. Patricks Day on your own, but many of us will be enjoying a Scotch and a story or two in the famous old bar that evening.

Day 4 Day 4 starts at the fountain of youth. DeLeon Springs is famous for being the legendary fountain of youth that Ponce DeLeon sought. Today it is a state park, famous for its swimming (so don’t forget your suit) and a pancake house that resides in a sugar mill from the 1500s! We will probably be too stuffed for lunch, but we will make our way through the curviest hill country in Florida back to Mount Dora where we will take a nature boat cruise through Central Florida’s unique freshwater canal system. From there we head south to Lakeland were we will stay at the newly restored and absolutely beautiful Lakeland Terrace Inn.

Day 5 From Lakeland we head to the little known, but absolutely fantastic, Fantasy of Flight museum and air show. This art deco recreation has dozens of amazing antique planes and cars and if the weather is nice, which it always is in Florida in March, you can take a flight in a 1929 Stearman bi-plane. Lunch will be a surprise and then we really get into the orange blossom country as we head down curvy, hilly Rt. 17A to Sebring where we will end out tour with a look at the private hanger and collection of planes and cars of legendary Group 44 team owner, Bob Tullius.

Full details and entry form at ClassicMotorsports.Net/orange-blossom-tour

Or call Classic Motorsports at: (800) 520-8292

Now THAT sounds like a blast and a half!

Sounds spectacular! The price is very reasonable. I think even my wife would like it. Problem is, I'm in New England and wouldn't drive or ship my Spitfire to Florida. How about a class for rental cars for the out-of-staters?

New England to Florida with your classic is easy! Do as we did this past year when we took our TR8 from Maine to Florida and attended the Amelia Island event, then drove all the way to Key West: take your car (drive or trailer) to Washington DC and put it on the Amtrak autotrain. Get on the train in the afternoon and wake up the next morning in Orlando!

This sounds like a fun trip and we are already making plans to attend.

I was just going to suggest the AutoTrain. It ends in Sanford, Florida, which is less than an hour from our office. This should be seriously cool.

RossD wrote: I think it would be cool to do one of, if not all of the Great Lakes tours.

The family and I did the Lake Michigan tour this summer. So we did it in a Trailblazer, but I could see doing it again in a sports car. And my Dad did the Lake Superior tour once and that is my next goal as he claimed it is awesome.

We have also found a local company that rents classics including a 67 Mustang. I don't think we will allow rental cars, unless it is something cool like a new Mustang convertible. Everything we do is inclusive and not exclusive, so we can probably figure something out on this.

Another fun way to get here is to take Skyline Drive and then the Blue Ridge Parkway. Not far out of the way and amazing drive!

Was all set to fill in my entry form and noted the 1979 cut off date for vehicles. Does a 1980 Triumph TR8 qualify as an exotic?

Yes, sounds like a TR8 is "exotic enough."

I've fudged the year cutoff with the Mini by lying about it's age. Unless it's some judged event, I don't see the harm. Since the cars were basically unchanged from 1969-1981 I don't see the harm. The purpose of such year restrictions is to deter 'modern' cars from participating. If a car is essentially unchanged but misses the cutoff by a year or two I don't see a problem.

ddavidv wrote: I've fudged the year cutoff with the Mini by lying about it's age.......

Ditto my "'67 Sprite" which is really a '78 Midget tub.

In reply to kreb:

I did one of the early California melee rallies back in 1995. It was known then as the Dirtbag Winter Rally. Cost was $75 per person for rally, hotel, t-shirt, and stick on rally plaque. We went from S.F. to Fort Bragg and back. About 500 mile trip. Me and a buddy drove it in "Oliver", my 69 TR6.

Many of the various Miata clubs do this sort of thing routinely. Maybe find one that's undersubscribed in this economy , and see if they would permit a "classics" grouping to join in.

This looked like it was a great idea, a no cost rally, but I heard it got cancelled. I hope they try again next year, my car should be ready by then.