5 Fantastic Fall Drives

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Fall is that time of year when it is better to be on the way than to arrive; when roadsides blaze with color, and motorists chart a course north to follow the foliage.

For some, the merest dip in the mercury conjures up visions of rural Vermont with cow-studded pastures, covered bridges, and souvenir shops purveying cheddar cheese and maple sugar candy. But the change of seasons is no less an attraction elsewhere in America. And no matter how rustic or remote the scenery, it can be even more appealing with the right car.

Pennsylvania by Pony Car

The Amish country of Pennsylvania is the perfect destination for a weekend drive in fall, and there may be no more enjoyable way to do it than in a 2012 Camaro convertible. The route to the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside leads west out of Philadelphia for about an hour before you reach the bosky villages of Intercourse, Bird in Hand, and Blue Balls and the traffic along Route 30 slows to the pace of a horse-drawn carriage. For a while the road seems to abound with every imaginable form of touristic hucksterism – all-you-can eat “farm style” restaurants, souvenir shops with lamps made from horseshoes, quasi-Amish straw hats, amusement parks, flea markets, auctions, and cafes selling shoo-fly pie and funnel cake – but then you turn off onto a back road and modernity disappears.

This is the countryside depicted in “Witness,” a world where neighbors still gather at barn raisings, where small boys walk behind six-horse plows, and life goes on much the way it did a century ago.

This doesn’t mean the Amish — young and old — won’t gather around to admire your Camaro ragtop.  “The Camaro is timeless,” says Monte Doran, Chevy spokesman. “For Baby Boomers, it’s the muscle car they fell in love with in 1969. For teens the Camaro is ‘Bumblebee,’ the hero of Transformers.”

But the new ragtop also has its practical side. “Fuel economy is respectable for a four-seater muscle car,” says Doran. “The Camaro’s V-6 delivers 29 mpg on the highway and puts out 323 horsepower, as much as the V-8 of 10 years ago.”

No less importantly, the Camaro ragtop was never an afterthought; it was designed at the same time as the coupe. Thus the lack of cowl shake and torsional stiffness is better than a BMW 3-Series convertible’s.

In short, losing its tin top is the best thing that could have happened to the Camaro; with the steel top gone so is that squashed, glowering demeanor; the car simply looks happier. 

With its top down, so do its drivers.

Rocky Mountains by Off-Roader