Traveling Healey-Hopefully

Constant attention is part of the experience of English cars. When you arrive at your destination, you have achieved something

by Gary Anderson

Most gearheads agree that a classic car doesn’t come to life until it’s driven on the open road. Highly organized thousand-mile tours have allowed many owners to put some miles under their classic wheels, but don’t hold a candle to a plan-as-you-go long-distance road trip with one or two friends in old British cars.

I can say this after recently completing a two-week, 2,300-mile trip up the coast of California and along the river roads of western Oregon in my Austin-Healey 3000. The scenery was spectacular along the rugged Pacific Coast and among the redwoods, the pace was relaxing, strangers admired our cars, and we couldn’t have had a better time.

We even got to repair my car along the way, surely an essential part of any English car road trip. We were on Highway 97, in central Oregon, when my car hiccupped then started again. An hour later, when we found a few shade trees, we replaced the distributor on the theory that it was either spark or...