A Car Fanatic’s Fantastic Journey

Ten years ago, I drove a first-generation ­Jaguar F-type around nearly perfect back roads in the Spanish countryside. The hillsides looked prehistoric, and the fresh-off-the-factory-floor V-6 F-type convertible (the best configuration of that bold little two-seater) was quick but not overpowering, with a gearbox perfectly suited to the newly born roadster. Even then, when Tesla still had just one production model, the F-type seemed like a future relic to be studied and envied by some alien archaeologist years hence.

This story originally appeared in Volume 17 of Road & Track.

This issue, Vol. 17: Sacred Ground, is a travel edition. But it’s more than that. We took a little risk and twisted the concept of sacred, wringing the capital-R Religion out of it and going with a secular sort of sanctity. For some of us, cars are the closest we’ll ever get to religion. And the places we travel to here are sites that auto enthusiasts hold in the highest (dare I say holiest?) regard.

In the following pages, we venerate the Nürburg­ring for reasons both personal and, arguably, universal (page 064). To us, the Ring has a sort of magic. We travel to the Arctic Circle and find the frozen land where all cars are proven (page 030). We trek through Nevada desert in a Bronco Raptor (page 052) and across the dunes of Morocco in a 911 Dakar (page 044), and we explore the mystical roads around Hiroshima in a Miata (page 076).

There’s a purpose to each journey that penetrates deeper than the soil or tarmac, going to places with real meaning.

I closed the circle with a trip back to Spain a few weeks ago to test the final generation of the F-type. I felt a tug of nostalgia, not only because the F-type has run its noble course but because I’d be driving roads that meant something special to me. I lived in Barcelona 20 years ago. On weekends, I would drive my jury-rigged 1984 Fiat Uno up into the Pyrenees and ride the top of each gear on some of the best routes I’ve ever driven—empty, dramatic, well-paved, with more than a little risk. Finding the limit on mountain roads is my idea of religion.

Eventually, I would roll to a stop at a crescent beach in San Sebastián, where I’d sleep for a ­couple of hours, eat some pintxos, turn around, and aim that little 54-hp Fiat back into the mountains, stopping only to reattach a coolant hose or quarter-panel screw that had rattled loose. Those roads are bewitching.

Road & Track doesn’t espouse any religious views, but we do unashamedly worship at the altar of the right car, the right road, the perfect moment. To us, that is sacred ground.

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