A bit of inspiration....

Looks good.:thumb Did you prefer doing the road trip in the Mustang, or on the bike?
 
Looks good.:thumb Did you prefer doing the road trip in the Mustang, or on the bike?

There were pro's and con's with both. The car gave us the freedom to hop in and out and take photos or go walking without lugging bike gear around with us, but it wasn't as much fun on the twisty roads.

I got quite depressed on the Beartooth Highway and Chief Joseph pass as they were made for biking :(
 
Nice pics! At least it was a convertible :)
 
The Nutty GSER;d3876415 said:
Looks good.:thumb Did you prefer doing the road trip in the Mustang, or on the bike?
There were pro's and con's with both. The car gave us the freedom to hop in and out and take photos or go walking without lugging bike gear around with us, but it wasn't as much fun on the twisty roads.
Hi Sven, my wife and I are visiting some of the parks in that area next September and I'm thinking of renting a Mustang, although if it was up to me I'd be going on a bike for sure. Can you tell us a bit more about the Mustang, please? And is it really as big as it seems in the photo in your other thread, hell's bells, it looks huge.
 
Hi Sven, my wife and I are visiting some of the parks in that area next September and I'm thinking of renting a Mustang, although if it was up to me I'd be going on a bike for sure. Can you tell us a bit more about the Mustang, please? And is it really as big as it seems in the photo in your other thread, hell's bells, it looks huge.

Personally, I would and usually do rent an SUV. It's a far better viewing platform for sight-seeing and gives you a bit more flexibility in the roads you choose. Rental agreements usually say no off-pavement use but if we'd adhered to that, we'd never have made it out onto Bonneville Salt Flats when they were flooded, down the dirt roads in the Montana and Wyoming back country, along the Burr Trail and down the Mokee Dugway in Utah and along some of the trails in Cape Breton..... :augie
 
A car with a roof is like a busmans holiday to me as I spend too much time driving up and down the A1 in my company car. A convertible with the roof down totally changes the driving experience :thumb2 It was also a bucket list experience for me, driving a convertible muscle car on a U.S. road trip :bow it was also much cheaper than a bike at about £630 for 17 days vs. £2300 for the RT last time.

The rental company probably won't guarantee a Mustang, the exception being (ISTR Hertz in LA, LV or SF), so you're probably just as likely to end up with a Camero, Chrysler L200 (very common) or possibly something else.

We were lucky when we arrived at the Alamo depot in Denver as we sprinted off the bus and managed to get in the queue ahead of three Danish guys who also wanted a Mustang. The lady at the desk advised that they had one Mustang, one Camero and the sh*tty L200. We quickly checked out the Mustang and Trudi then stood guard whilst I checked out the Camero as the Danish guys were hovering.

I chose the Mustang as it had a nicer interior, although very similar to the mid-00's Mondeo. It was a V6 3.0 with an horrible automatic box and allegedly 307bhp, but it felt asthmatic at 8000ft elevation - my 320ED felt like a racing car in comparison once we got back to Manchester Airport. I only passed my test in 2008 and have only driven cars with parking sensors and automatic headlights and windscreen wipers, so panicked as we left the parking lot and onto the motorway and realised the headlights weren't on and I didn't know where the switch was :eek: Luckily it was 11pm, so I managed to swerve onto the hard shoulder and park up whilst I figured out how to switch them on :augie once we reached the nearby hotel, it was a pig to park at first without parking sensors as it felt huge. Luckily I had my lovely little parking attendant with me....

The next day we headed up into the Black Hills as the temperature hit the high 30's. This is when we discovered that the air con is useless with the roof down (the 118 convertible I'd driven before had very effective blowers) and it gets far too blustery much above 60mph. The pattern thereafter was roof down in the National Parks or nice twisty roads like Utah 12, roof up when covering long distances at speed e.g. Devils Tower - Little Bighorn.

The other problem was the leather seats. These looked much classier than the cloth seats in the Camero, but were far too bloody hot when the car had been parked in the sun with the roof down.

Handling wise, it is a heavy car, but was OK in the Black Hills, Yellowstone, UT12 and CO550 (Million Dollar Highway from Silverton to Ouray).

Lastly, the stereo didn't have a valid Sirius radio subscription, so there were very few channels to listen to, mainly country and western and the odd soft rock channel. However, it will connect to a phone via Bluetooth and play your music, so take a good selection and maybe some podcasts and audio books as we got bored of the same music, even with about 1200 tracks on my phone.

It was a cracking holiday though and whilst not as much fun as a bike, it was much more fun than a normal saloon. The 2015 Mustang is a completely new car based on the current Fusion/Mondeo platform, so you could get lucky :thumb2
 
I only passed my test in 2008 and have only driven cars with parking sensors and automatic headlights and windscreen wipers, so panicked as we left the parking lot and onto the motorway and realised the headlights weren't on and I didn't know where the switch was :eek: Luckily it was 11pm, so I managed to swerve onto the hard shoulder and park up whilst I figured out how to switch them on :augie once we reached the nearby hotel, it was a pig to park at first without parking sensors as it felt huge.

Dear God...
 
Fantastic trip and pics.:thumb2

Talking about heat in hard top cars.:blast
I remember driving through Death Valley in an Oldsmobile Cutlass. The air cond was running flat out and just about keeping us cool. On returning to the car after it had been parked up for lunch in Furnace Creek, I could feel a blast of hot air as I opened the door. It was just like opening an oven door. I'm glad it didn't have leather seats.
Next time I visit the States I hope I will be driving a convertible, or even better, riding a bike.
 
Thank you all for the backing for a rag top, and especially to Sven for such a comprehensive reply. Having said that I'm still not sure how big the Mustang is, my wife's preference was for something sensible, something like a Fiesta would be fine...

Well, balls to that, FFS these are the States we're talking about here, wide open spaces, big skies. Fiesta, my arse.

I must admit that the comment on driving a muscle car, a Mustang, through the States on one of the threads on here did strike a chord and this may be my last opportunity to do so because I'll be in my seventies next year and may not be able to get insurance for such a beast.

I have scanned the Top Gear article on the latest Mustang and they seem to rate it very highly, praise indeed from the TG team. I do hope it isn't too eager- I'd hate to get caught speeding inadvertently. Speaking of which- how keen are they over there on speeding, do they delight in speed checks on wide open stretches of road and pinch you for an excess mph or two or are they more laid back than that- still that's not a realistic question considering the number of states we'll be covering I suppose. Oh, and back to the size again, was that an issue at all? No doubt in the wide open spaces it wouldn't have been, but, parking aside :augie how was it in the towns and cities? When we were there last in the nineties most of the cars were the size of aircraft carriers and even then our (upgraded) Chrysler Imperial wasn't much of a problem actually. Driving the moster out of the car rental place at LAX (Los Angeles Airport) on to the ninety seven-lane Suplevada (sp?) Highway was initially daunting though but I remember being astonished at the politeness and complete lack of aggression of the driving there.

I can hardly wait. :bounce1
 
The pre-2015 Mustang isn't ridiculously big - it's probably the same size as my old 2008 Mondeo, so big, but manageable

The speed limit on many roads, even single carriageways, is 75mph nowadays, so speeding isn't too much of an issue. I was told that the police give you around 5mph leeway, but I didn't see many traffic cars. Apparently they have oncoming radar, so can read your speed and chase after you if they wanted to.

The speed limits in the National Parks can be frustrating at times, but the scenery normally keeps you entertained :D
 
Beautiful photos on that site, John.
Hiking the Narrows in Zion national park is pretty cool. In fact if you're in the southwest US I would include Zion Utah on your "must visit" list.
 
The roads are Ok all over for the Mustang and parking will be no issue at all. Reference the speeding, I'm seeing more and more cops on my trips and they will not give you any leeway and especially not in built up areas or national parks. Do not go over the limit there as they will happily empty your wallet. They have forward facing speed guns so just be very careful and in any case, you don't want to be flying around on your hols. Especially not in a Mustang which handles like a drunken Ox at the best of times.
 
Reference the speeding, I'm seeing more and more cops on my trips and they will not give you any leeway and especially not in built up areas or national parks.

Have you been in Montana recently? That's the only place Ive ever really had an LEO encounter. We were happily bowling along a two lane in a Nissan Murano with 85 on the GPS when I met a Sheriff's Dept. SUV coming the other way. He just lit me up, pointed at his speedo, I slowed down to the 70 limit until he was out of sight and we continued on our merry way.

I'm reminded that this was some 8 years ago.....:eek
 
Well YeeeHarrr, it looks like we will be getting one of them thar Fordmustangs for our trip after all, my wife has agreed to humour me on the condition that I don't get myself a ten-gallon cowboy hat and drive around wearing that. Deal!

Can hadly fecking wait! :bounce1
 
John request the all new 2015 Mustang, it has an improved transmission, much nicer ride, and better interior.
 
John request the all new 2015 Mustang, it has an improved transmission, much nicer ride, and better interior.
I certainly intend to, according to everything I've read this year's Mustang is a leap forward in most aspects, in fact it was Top Gear's recommendation that made me decide to do the trip in something special. :)

Beautiful photos on that site, John.
Hiking the Narrows in Zion national park is pretty cool. In fact if you're in the southwest US I would include Zion Utah on your "must visit" list.

Would you (or anyone else on here) have any suggestions for, umm... say, the best four National Parks to vist in a four week tour, starting in San Francisco and spending a few (three/four?) days there to get over the jet-lag. Yosemite is a must, as well as the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone and a slot canyon somewhere, Zion, Monument and ... oh dear you can see my problem, too many attractions, and all good. Reading about all the various sights is puddling my mind and I'm finding it impossible to decide, all suggestions welcome. :)

Hang on, this deserves a new thread. A copy-and-paste is called for I'd say.

EDIT: New thread duly cut-and-pasted, see "US National Parks" :thumb2
 


Back
Top Bottom