Last time we heard from serial BaT buyer Goose1964, he had just wrapped up an epic cross-country road trip with his brothers and some friends. He’s been back at it again on yet another cross-country voyage with an even larger cavalcade of vintage cars, including this 1973 Morgan Plus 8 purchased from allvett, this 1989 Bentley Turbo R and 2000 Saab 9-3 convertible sold by Rarecars, and this 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible auctioned by Rvan393.

Goose1964 writes:

By the time we completed the first Oddball Cannonball, the seeds for the second story had already germinated and were taking root. We had a blast on the first run, learned some things, and rounded up even more folks who wanted to join us. If you thought the first Oddball Cannonball was a complicated logistical puzzle, wait until you hear about this one.

Our father had owned two Morgan Plus 8s in the 1970s, and now we wanted one for our own. As luck would have it, we acquired our first Plus 8 near Alameda, California—now we were committed. We set out to acquire a second Plus 8, and one showed up on BaT near Portland, Oregon near my my daughter (who I taught to drive in a 1961 Buick). I won the auction, and after a visit with my daughter, I took my new Morgan all the way back down the coast to visit Eric at Engine Works in Alameda. Along the way, I sent a picture from the midst of the Redwoods indicating curves for the next 22 miles to many friends, saying I thought I’d found heaven. We gave Eric a long list of items to sort—go through all the rubber, install new tires, service all systems, install aluminum radiators and supplemental fans, chase and slay the prince of darkness, and convert the green car to a modern five-speed gearbox. He and his crew were versatile, skilled, and willing.

At first, I was thinking that this would just be a trip in the Morgans with my older brother Ted and his wife, Nancy. However, other friends told me they wanted to join—the group of likely participants quickly reached 10! We were going to need more cars. Ted purchased a Scirocco near LA, and I added a BMW 2002 Baur cabriolet to the fleet soon after.

Four cars for 10 potential drivers—we still needed more…

We set our official trip date for early April 2022. In relatively quick succession, I won two more modern cars—a 1989 Bentley Turbo R and a 2000 Saab 9-3 convertible. The Bentley would provide comfort and relief from the Morgan on long drives, while the Saab added a much-needed dose of reliability. Our mechanic Eric now had two more cars to prepare. It was February, and with a 6:10 car-to-driver ratio, we wanted to add another car or two.

I bought a 1951 Fiat Topolino with a turbocharged motor from GenauAutoWerks. Bring a Trailer—as always—came through, and we secured a nice, road-ready 1968 Firebird convertible (long a car on my bucket list). The Fiat died en route to Eric’s shop while in Oakland rush hour traffic—clearly a portent of what was to come. I reluctantly had it towed to Eric’s shop, caught a late flight to Seattle to pick it up the Firebird, and drove back to Alameda. It was a quick two days. We also dropped off the Scirocco for service, and concluded that the Fiat would become a major question mark among the other seven trip-ready cars.

A week or two before the trip, three folks dropped out. We were down to seven drivers and one passenger: the veterans (my brothers Ted and John), my nephews Syd and JB, our friend Tom (a glutton for punishment given his experience on the first adventure), and two new additions, our friends Dave and David. We needed at least one more driver; the more, the merrier. John recruited his friend Armin, and I decided to reach out to BaT commentator extraordinaire and all-around interesting guy PDXBryan on a lark, though he was otherwise committed. I spent some time thinking about how to rope him in, and the answer came in the form of another car. A Toyota Sports 800, purchased from PDXBryan’s neck of the woods, was added to the convoy. Bryan and his friend Steve would be able to join, after all! They’d meet up with the crew when we got to Medford, Oregon. The rest of us gathered in San Francisco the Thursday before Easter to start a three-day drive up the coast, enjoying the northern stretch of PCH and the redwoods of the Avenue of the Giants. Our route would continue further north to Crater Lake, east through a few national parks, then southeast after Mount Rushmore and on down to Florida. We allocated 10 days for the 4,000-mile trek.

Eric had the cars ready when we arrived, and Ted devised a concept to match a vehicle to a driver for that day’s drive. My youngest, Ellis, made pins adorned with a photo of each car and a navigator pin for the odd man out, which we would draw to select our steed for the day. JB even designed a T-shirt for the trip—we were getting fancy. We drew for cars, and as we started to move them out of the shop, Eric disappeared. He came back driving the Fiat with a propeller cap on his head. Ted moaned, quickly recognizing that the Fiat was the weakest link. I settled the last of my bills with Eric, tried to cajole him to join us (no luck), and we were off.

Our baptism by fire took us through the streets of San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone had smiles on their faces. We bounced through Muir Woods, and all was well until it wasn’t; the Fiat wasn’t charging its battery, and the electrical system was erratic. After lunch, we acquired an assortment of wire, crimpers, a soldering iron, and the like. We surveyed our tools, made a few roadside repairs, and continued on to the night’s lodging. John blindly followed Siri for the shortest route, and we found ourselves on a washed-out logging road—an interesting challenge in these cars. In any event, we checked in and got the Fiat further sorted.

We had a great birthday dinner for Ted in our hotel that night and described our trip to our server. They deadpanned that they’d shoot the Fiat and leave it behind.

We drove on the following day, but only after the Scirocco burped following a coastal photo op. Thankfully, it was just a loose O2 sensor, an issue Ted quickly addressed. We were well underway when the radio came to life again—the green Morgan had died. The mechanical fuel pump was the culprit, and the closest auto parts store was over 40 miles away. Most of the group went on to source parts while the Fiat, Morgan, and Bentley (the mobile parts and tool hauler due to its relative size) hung back to make repairs. At least we were stranded with a view.

We were back on the road after installing an electric fuel pump, but managed to stump ourselves again. Eric had pulled a lead off the coil to run the new radiator fan, and I stupidly attached it to the same lead for the fuel pump, which overloaded the wire to the distributor, melting it. I replaced the melted wire but dropped a nut into the distributor under the advance plate. I retrieved it, but now I had grounded the advance plate out, rendering the car inoperable. The others sent a tow truck to pick up the Morgan. We then rebuilt the distributor, rerouted the fuel pump wires, and, by some miracle, got underway again fairly quickly. We ventured up the coast and drove into the night, hoping to get back on schedule, andstopped in Fort Bragg, a bit below Avenue of the Giants, and found good seafood for dinner.

We left Fort Bragg the next day, and it was a magical day—all the cars ran well. We had a blast driving up the coast, enjoyed the Redwoods, and made a plan to drive a moderately long day to meet up with Bryan and Steve near Medford before heading a bit east, hoping to be at Crater Lake by the following day. All was well, save for the Scirocco’s broken driver seat.

We neared Medford on our way to meet up with Bryan and Steve. As with the Fiat, I hadn’t told anyone about the Toyota. Before our trip, Bryan had found a great shop local to him run by a kindred spirit—Brady Joy, owner of Import Repair Center of Portland, Oregon. Brady has an extensive background with Cortina’s as well as Lotus and Lancia products, and he was impressed by the Toyota’s engineering innovations. He implored me not to hurt the car, and after a set of fresh tires pronounced it fit for the journey so long as we were attentive to it. We pulled into Medford, and after we met with Bryan and Steve it was time for the big reveal.

A few incredulous comments from the crew re: the Toyota, and we were off again! We made it to Shady Grove, Oregon for the night, performed surgery on the Scirocco’s seat, addressed some other things here and there (including a loose wheel bearing on the Fiat), and thoroughly checked the remainder of the fleet. We quickly realized the Scirocco’s seat fix was temporary, so we poked around on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist until we found Scirocco seats located near Bend, Oregon—just a few hours away. We deemed the Saab the most reliable car of the bunch, so we determined that Ted and Tom would drive it to retrieve the new seat while the rest of us headed east leisurely, intending to reconnect somewhere near Burns, Oregon, and continue into Idaho for the night.

We filled the cars with gas, checked over the systems, and went on our way. However, I inadvertently overfilled the Fiat and soon learned that the gas tank, situated behind and above the engine, vents excess through the cap onto the exhaust manifold. Heat and gas don’t mix. We had a lot of smoke but fortunately little in the way of fire. We trailed up towards Crater Lake with little additional drama. We were fascinated by the 10-foot snowbanks on either side of the road, and excited to drive to the park and see the lake. Regrettably, the road wasn’t open yet, but the drive there was a beautiful experience.

We headed back down toward Burns to meet with Ted and Tom, and the Fiat was drinking oil. We stopped every 100 miles to add a pint, but then the battery stopped holding its charge. The Fiat had died.

It became a theme that some in our crew lacked mechanical aptitude. Here’s an example: I put a new battery in the Fiat, but there was still no juice—I checked the ground beneath the car and loosened, cleaned, and tightened many connections only to return to the battery. I removed the terminal connections and found that my helper had left the plastic cap on top of one of the battery terminals. After an hour of working on the car, we hadn’t made much progress and heeded the advice of the waitress from our first night—shoot the Fiat. We had it towed to a dealership in Klamath Falls, where a sympathetic service manager assisted us. We contemplated whether or not to retrieve it at all.

We rocketed northeast for Burns and let Ted and Tom know we were behind them. The route north from Klamath Falls, where we had abandoned the Fiat, to Burns was desolate—four hours of isolated roads with perhaps two gas stations in Lakeview followed by 140 miles of nothing but stark scenery accented by the faint alkaline odor of the winter lakebeds. We soon learned from a kind local that while mild in winter, the smell is unbearable in summer.

About halfway through the desolate stretch, we pulled over to regroup, and the Bentley let out a screech. I discovered the remnants of a belt and an alternator with the unmistakable grind of shot bearings. We found a nearby hill where we could get cell service and called Ted to source an alternator and dispatch a tow truck. Ted and Tom, having already arrived in Burns by this time, quickly found a tow truck, but it’d be a couple of hours. Dave and I stayed behind with the Bentley and sent everyone else on. We waited two hours and saw four cars, including a truck with a horse trailer that stopped to let their horses rest for a few moments. Ted made acquaintance with Tod, the owner of the local Napa. They found a belt, but the alternator was a week out.

Burns is not known for its luxury lodging, so I asked Ted to look at a few places because I wasn’t comfortable with what I could garner online. Fortunately, we found some clean beds and decent food, but not a five-star resort. The tow truck arrived as the sun set, and Tod agreed to keep the Bentley and install the alternator when it arrived. This meant that the Bentley had to be left behind. We had lost two cars in one day.

To be continued…

Hol-ee cow, Goose1964, this has been an adventure already, and we’re looking forward to hearing Part II!

If you have a Success Story about a car you’ve bought or sold on BaT, please send a few lines and pictures (or a video) to community.content@bringatrailer.com, and we’ll send you a $50 credit to the BaT Gear Store when your story posts to the site.

We love to hear from satisfied BaT buyers and sellers, and a Success Story feature is a great addition to any car’s history when you’re ready to sell.