At some level, a lot of car people have probably fantasized about fixing up their car and driving until the road runs out. Usually, things like "a job" or "rent" get in the way, or the simple fact that a lot of fun cars aren't really all that fun on long drives. One guy (read: one lunatic) ignored all of that, driving his Acura NSX from Key West to the Arctic Circle.
The Arctic By Way Of, Well, Everywhere Else First
John Lange tells The Autopian he has an issue with "scope creep," a term for uncontrolled growth in a project's scope, generally after the project begins. See, the plan wasn't always to do all this driving. John just really likes his NSX. He's owned 14 over the years. “I started thinking, okay, so I’m gonna be in Seattle. [NSXPO, an owner's meetup, is] probably not going to be up here for another 20 years. So I should probably drive into Canada. And then I started thinking, well, if I’m going to drive into Canada, I should probably consider driving to Alaska and to the Arctic Circle. And then I considered, I’m four hours from the coast of South Carolina, so I could just pop down the Atlantic and start on the Atlantic. And then the scope creep continued, and I realized the only real way to do it would be to drive down to Key West to ‘start my trip.'” Since August 5, Lange has put over 13,000 miles on his white NSX.
Lange left home on August 5th, hitting Key West before flipping around and heading north. He stopped in Asheville for some maintenance, then carried on after nine days. By and large, it was a straight shot, with Lange spending just a few days in Banff doing some hiking around. Who wouldn't need a little time out in nature after doing five-digit mileage in their car?
The Alaskan John Lange Fan Club
Lange says he picked up a bit of a following upon entering Alaska during the last push up to the Arctic Circle, and it's also worth pointing out he'd camp wherever he could. At one point, Lange caused some clutch issues after a trip down a too-dusty road packed up the car's transmission bell housing. Alaskan locals began to take notice of the car too: “A guy pulls in in a CRV and starts chatting me up, he runs some local car Facebook group in Alaska, and took a couple of pictures of my car,” he says. “And it just spread like wildfire around Alaska. I was getting friends that used to live there hit me up, saying they saw my post, and then somebody else chimed in and had a video of that they had taken of me driving on the Alcan [Highway] that they put up in that thread."
As for what's next, Lange says he's heading down the west coast to meet up with friends before turning home. You can read his full interview with The Autopian here.
from Autoblog News https://ift.tt/0qV8FSH
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