A little while ago, Jason Shafer asked for our car of choice for a road trip across and around the United States, in 1976. In my response, I cheated a bit and offered up a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, and quoted Mel Nichols in CAR Magazine with David and Jeannie Davis as an example of how to do it.
So, it only seems right to share this with the CC audience. Settle back for a good holiday weekend read.
First published in June 1977, when the 450SEL 6.9 was brand new in the US, the template was very simple.
Nichols, editor of CAR at the time, flew to LAX, met with the Davises and joined them in a straight forward road trip to New York, crossing along the Route 66 – California, Arizona, Texas, crossing the Mississippi, Kentucky, Oklahoma, the Appalachian mountains and finally New York. Having dined with Dan Gurney the night before, obviously.
Not only was the Mercedes new to America, America was new to Nichols (actually Australian, rather than British; CAR has long tradition of Australian contributors) and his impressions of the sights, sounds, tastes of the US form a major part of the story. The car takes a back seat.
Another major element of the journey was the use of the CB radio, mostly to track police speed checks, and some weather alerts. Nichols becomes convert during the trip.
And the Mercedes itself? Nichols was impressed, with a few reservations. There was a mechanical failure close to the end of the journey but you sense that few cars could have done this quite as convincingly. The cost of £23000 is equivalent to £145,000 now.
And other thoughts? I’d forgotten how few illustrations magazines had in 1977, the quality of the paper is little more than newsprint and the text small. The story runs over several pages and then “continues on page 75” at the back of the magazine as well, alongside an LJKS Aston Martin feature.
And some of the inferred attitudes around women drivers and the terminology around Native Americans could well grate a bit too.
CAR is based in the UK, and innovated by using the travelogue in its coverage of the car and its appeal, and this, along with its more blunt and certainly not sycophantic coverage of the industry including UK players, at times brutal product coverage, scoop features as well as some excellent writers – LJKS comes to mind of course. The magazine still has such travelogues on a fairly frequent basis. Recent highlights include crossing Australia in a MINI, a Rolls-Royce Phantom to Istanbul from London and driving a Land Rover Discovery to Timbuktu.
I love this. And not just because I chose the same car as my response. There’s a long history of CAR (and others) joining up with the American magazines for pieces like this, if you read more than just the local ones, wherever you are, you come across the differing pieces and viewpoints written about the same voyage etc. And CAR really seemed to produce some very long ones such as this one.
Of course, being a long-time CAR fan/reader from about ’83-’00 regularly and then sporadically thereafter, this one is new to me, being too old to have seen when new, but there are plenty of others too. Thanks for sharing this, Roger!
Fascinating read. The prevalence of the CB in the story isn’t what I remember in Saint Paul at the time, and the amount of the story focused on the Southwest is also interesting. I remember my first time, driving the opposite direction into the region as equally enthralling. I ended up living in Tucson later in life for a time as a result.
3500 miles across America. Sounds like a fun thing to do. Alot of those destinations are familiar, Flagstaff, Sedona, New Jersey, Cincinnati, all with their own feel about them.
Their Mercedes served them well on this trip, albeit with a few glitches like the air suspension that had to be jacked back up.
I remember the first time I heard the term “take-away” in reference to what I call take out food. I was ordering fish and chips in West Coker perhaps, and I had to ask the barkeep to repeat himself before I could answer. Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten was in the UK.
Great read, this trip was well documented. Appreciate your sharing this.
Mel Nichols, theres’s an article in Wheels magazine from 1971 he wrote, a shorter trip but pretty legendary in Australia. A brand new Ford Falcon XY GT HO, (race homologation special and aside from the 6.9 litre Mercedes the fastest four door car in the world*) a quiet Saturday night and a drive from Melbourne to the New South Wales border. Read it you will not regret it.
That was a good lunch-time read, if a bit longer than lunch itself. The good old days, when people wanted long articles, as there was a lot less competition for their attention.
I remember reading this article when it came out. I just lusted after the 6.9 as a kid and this article made me think David E Davis Jr was just about the coolest man alive!
About three years ago I stopped buying new “Car” magazines because there was little to read of interest. Recently I pulled out one of the last copies I bought, around 2016 and tried to read it. It really was hard to concentrate on the content; by comparison I have an edition from 1997 which I have re-read from cover to cover with no difficulty. Something has happened to the magazine. That which they think makes it digestible makes it hard to latch on to. Going further back, it pays to buy old copies of Car because you can learn a hell of a lot in their articles and I still do learn a lot when I invest in one. The formula today for car magazines is very narrow and, I would guess, the result of a managerial and psuedo-scientific approach to their demographic.
Wonderful to read this today — thanks for posting it! I feel like I’ve read snippets of this trip before, likely retold by David E. Davis in Automobile, or in CAR when I regularly read it. But I’ve certainly never read this in its entirety.
And I’ve long wondered at just what speed those magnetized CB antennas will let go… now I know they’re good until about 130mph! Also I’m somehow surprised that CAR’s readership would be familiar enough with CW McCall’s Convoy reference to understand I-one-oh for I-40, but I guess the CD lingo was more widespread than I thought.
Overall, a wonderful piece to read… and long enough to soak up the minutiae that make trips like this fascinating.
Fantastic article! One has to remember that, at the time of writing, the UK was deep in recession and a rather depressing place to be. You can sense the wonder the writer felt on being in the USA. I grew up with CAR magazine and these articles not only sated my interest in vehicles, but made me want to explore the world. They are a pleasure to (re-)read. One of the most memorable tells the story of 3 brand new Lambos were collected from the factory and ferried to the UK by the intrepid Mr. Nicholls and colleagues. Again, it centers on the journey and not the technical aspects of the machines. There is something special about a long road trip and it takes good journalism to convey it.
I have plans to follow Route 66 from here in Chicago all the way to California one of these days, although, as my 50 year old steed has about 50 air cooled ponies, I will not be cruising at the speeds that old 6.9 could manage!
Wishing all CC’ers a happy, successful and enjoyable 2021!
This is the one you’re referring to …Feb 1977
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/magazine-reviews/convoy-mel-nichols-lamborghini-road-trip-urraco-countach-silhouette-review-car-magazine-february-1977/
Well worth reading again.
Yes Roger! Thank you!!
+1
As others have said it’s nice to read something longer form. (About the only long form articles I see these days are politics.)
It’s also interesting because my family did a 7,000 US road trip that summer (I was 15). Interesting hearing the British perspective, and some of the background on the age of the Interstate made me stop and think. I grew up with (and on) them so they didn’t seem new to me even though they weren’t much over 10 years old.
The late, great Davey Jones piloted a brown 450SEL 6.9 from LA to Houston in 2011.
It’s a great read too:
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15121123/1977-mercedes-benz-450sel-69-road-trip-feature/
Oh my, I’d almost forgotten about “Madison Smith Naturally.” It’s always good to know the owners of the dealerships if you have a niggling problem.
Mr. Nicols would be happy to know that most of southeastern Kentucky is no longer dry, although I’m not sure about the Berea College dining room. It is still a wonderful place, regardless.
WOW! What an entertaining read. It just sucked you in and many of the descriptions caused me to smile and laugh out loud and feel as if I were right there in the car. It reminded me of when I would voraciously devour my copies of Car & Driver/Automobile/Motor Trend/etc. Writers such as DED Jr, LJK Setright, and others (including “Ed.”) delivered articles that secured your interest, even in cars that you’d never be able to afford or experience! After having been a subscriber for some 30+ years, I reluctantly didn’t renew one after another, because the writing had changed, and not for the better. Thanks for the memories! 🙂
I’d love to know how David E Davis came to know Mel Nichols: it can only have been from his writing at this time in history, the Aussie invasion of the UK.
You see, Nichols was a young Tasmanian who worked at Wheels magazine in Australia, and ultimately went on to head up CAR in the UK and then all Haymarket magazines (Autocar, What Car? Classic & Sportscar) for 22 years. His former colleague from Wheels, Steve Cropley, has been Editor-in-Chief of the 125 y.o. Autocar in the UK for 28 years. CAR itself was brought out of the doldrums in the early ’60’s by a former Wheels writer (and Tasmanian) by the name of Doug Blain, and the whole magazine was purchased in 1970 by one of the original Wheels editors, Ian Fraser (who ultimately sold it to Rupert Murdoch in ’89!). The mag had Oz editors for near-30 years, but Blain had, to quote the ever-exact LJK Setright, begun a tradition of “of forthrightness, of independence, of style and of literacy.” The best car writing is still like that – if you can find it anywhere.
The Aussie influence on UK motor writing has been profound, and it seems David E took notice of this in the US fairly early on. Indeed, yet another long-time Wheels editor, Peter Robinson, was the C & D Europe correspondent for 20 years, and another, Angus MacKenzie, headed Motor Trend for 10-odd years, and is still there.
All of the players mentioned had real writing skills, with perhaps Mel Nichols the very best, but all were ultimately influenced by one man, the editor of Wheels from ’63-’67, the late and larger-than-life Bill Tuckey. He introduced the cheeky car review, and ones that called cars crap if that’s what they were: that was just not done before. And he had a skill for writing (and humour) to equal David E., and valued it in the journalists he employed.
It’s a bit sad that the once-amusing Clarkson was inspired by the Aussies like Nichols, because the idea of inserting oneself into the story (and of making harsh criticisms on good grounds) absolutely mutated under his dominance, and it’s left motor journalism to this day with a smart-arsed self-importance that is a long way removed from the classy stuff that the wizards from Oz once created.
I just read that David E Davis loved CAR so much he actually wanted to buy it, as he felt US publishing was OK but far too dull, and when that wasn’t going to happen – they feared too much US control – he launched Automobile magazine with many of CAR’S contributors and blessings.
The Oz influence goes even further than I thought….
It’s a bit sad that the once-amusing Clarkson was inspired by the Aussies like Nichols, because the idea of inserting oneself into the story (and of making harsh criticisms on good grounds) absolutely mutated under his dominance, and it’s left motor journalism to this day with a smart-arsed self-importance that is a long way removed from the classy stuff that the wizards from Oz once created.
This, x100.
I rarely use the word, but I admit to loathing Clarkson. I cannot stand to see his smug face or his contrived voice. Every one of those TG episodes was staged. That’s not journalism by a long shot; it’s trashy entertainment. But I still see comments here from viewers who were left with false but indelible “facts” from watching TG.
I admit to not being easily amused, and preferring facts over vaudeville. That probably makes me an outlier, but so be it.
Many of Today’s automotive programs, articles and reviews are entertainment, not journalism.
In my mind there are few things better than a cross country road trip.A few years back, My Wife and I, took a trip from San Jose to Bakersfield. East through to Phoenix Az, than north to Flagstaff. From Flagstaff we took as much as Route 66 as possible eastward and home.
Back in the late 70’s I took a four week long solo motorcycle trip around the country. Best road trip of my life. I got quite a few miles down last year, this year I’m looking to rediscover all the backroads of my youth. Happy New Year to all!