MyStarCollectorCar writer Jerry Sutherland has done a stellar job of chronicling the daily adventures of life on the road in a 1963 Plymouth over the past nine days– but since we are identical twins and, by nature, highly competitive animals, I decided to do a quick assessment of the same road trip.
Just for the record, 5300 miles is 8529 kilometers in metric-speak and it is an instant road adventure when you take it in a car built during the Kennedy administration.
Jim Sutherland
Things were different in ’63 because cars were engineered for a bygone era when a more leisurely pace was typically part of the program because yesteryear’s roads and vehicles were built for non-warp drive conditions.
Nevertheless, Jerry and I decided to embark on a quest to connect with the Mother Road (Route 66) in a 1963 Plymouth Belvedere 4-door sedan and soak up its legendary vibe in a period-correct car. We called it Route 63 because of the car’s age and the fact we did not limit ourselves to full time travel once we connected with Route 66 at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.
Jerry described the entire trip in excellent daily detail, including an accidental side trip to Deadwood, South Dakota–a mistake that became a very interesting detour and warranted the long trip back to our main route down to Route 66.
A notable part of the experience was 80 mph (roughly 130 km/h) freeways vs an old car since vintage cars are a full-time driving experience on their own and are not for the faint of heart at that speed.
The old Plymouth took everything that was thrown at it–and then some–along the way and only protested the high speeds with poor mileage during the entire trip. Bear in mind that very high wind speeds are the order of the day in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah–so much so that my stylish MyStarCollectorCar baseball cap flew off my head every time I got out of the car.
The net result was a tricky combination of high-speed driving through high-speed natural wind tunnels with freeways running through them. As mentioned earlier, it is not for the faint of heart, particularly when you are traveling down the road with a giant herd of semi trucks fighting for first place in the race.
The big rigs are a little swingy in hurricane force winds, so the best plan is to get by them as soon as possible to avoid their excessive cross wind effect on an old car under these extremely breezy conditions. The only solution is to understand how the old war pony reacts to shifting wind conditions so you can react accordingly to the situation.
Most steering corrections had to been done quickly within the parameters of old school steering and braking engineering found on a 1963 Plymouth Belvedere sedan the day it left the factory. Overcorrections under high-speed conditions on a windy modern road with 80 mph speed limits will not end well–unless you want to be the lead story on the local news about an old car and a tragic high-speed accident.
The happy ending to this story is the Plymouth performed remarkably well, given the tremendous stress of a 5300-mile road adventure with two clowns on a “mission-not a holiday”, to paraphrase Jerry’s words from one of his daily articles.
Thanks to everyone who followed our Route 63 road trip, we were very pleasantly surprised to see how much steam Jerry’s daily articles picked over the course of the adventure. Just like the old Plymouth.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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