I elected to drive the sag wagon for the Inaugural Two Lane Touring Rally to Hilton Head Island. We rented a Ford Expedition, and planned to put it to work carrying tools, luggage and myself from NY to Nashville, TN and on into Hilton Head Island.

My friends Brad Phillips, Pete Engle, and Matt Lewis created Two Lane Touring to continue rallies we had done through the years through other companies. When they asked if I would want to join them, it didn’t take long for me to agree. I’ve written about these rallies before, and it’s always a whole lot of fun.

Before I left NY, I stopped by Inness, in Accord NY to see a car show. It’s the second year of this little gathering of European Sports Cars, and I know a lot of the owners and the owner of the Golf Course. I couldn’t bring my Ferrari to the show this year because I had to leave for points south by midday.

I stopped in Charlottesville, VA the first night so I could make a house call on shop in VA. They were working on SI 330 and I’ve been consulting on the tune. Since I was passing through, it was the perfect opportunity to go over the car with them and see if there was anything I could help with in real time.

All the participants arrived in Nashville on Sunday and met at the Lane Museum for registration and sign in.

Jeff Lane was joining us with a Fiat 500, and gave us a tour of his museum.

After briefly showing us the public space in the Museum, Jeff took us downstairs to tour “The Vault” where they keep hundreds of more cars!

It seemed like every one of these cars were hand picked by Mr. Lane, and every one of them had a personal story or experience he shared with us. I was amazed at his memory for all the details!

We left Nashville, and it wasn’t even lunch time when I got my first motor trouble. Tom Papapopulous, owner of Autosport Designs in NY ran out of gas! Tom had just purchased this car at auction the week before and was intentionally trying to determine where empty on the fuel gauge actually was! He was lucky I was only a phone call away and not far from a dollar store and gas station to buy a can and some fuel!

Not far from Nashville, we stopped at Corky Coker’s museum in Chattanooga TN.

Mr Coker took us for a private tour of his collection and museum. He sold his tire business, but has kept the museum and a wooden wheel manufacturing business.

I would have never believed a company that makes wooden wheels for a Brass Era cars could still survive, but it looks like they stay pretty busy making wheels for cars all over the world.

The profiles of spokes for hundreds of wheels from manufacturers of a bygone era hang on the walls waiting for a customer to order a new wheel.

The wheels are each hand made, assembled and painted to a high shine. Corky took pride in the fact that after his wheels are made, you could not see any of the wood grain in the finished wheel!

I was drawn to the other side of the shop to this industrial machine that must be used to cut the profiles of the steel wheel rims.

I’m always amazed that businesses like these still make the parts for cars that were built over 100 years ago!

As we took the tours of these museums and businesses, we had our own little car show wherever we parked.

It was fun pairing the cars up as we pulled in to park.

photo J Sweeney

In the mornings before we left for another day of driving we tried to sort out some issues with the cars. Here we tried to sort out a bad brake light on an E-Type Jaguar.

Our friend John Barrett hosted a lunch at his shop in Athens Georgia.

Our next stop was New Creation Soda Works. They filled us up with root beet floats with their own soda, and let us sample all the other boutique flavors they offered.

We circled the wagons to get us some soda!

Josh Sweeney was the staff photographer and rode in several of the cars taking photos and capturing the drive for us to have.

The final night of the tour before heading into South Carolina, Tom P’s Lotus had his was water temp sender break, so we offered to swap it out with a unit he picked up at the auto parts store.

I always like working on vintage cars because they’re so simple to fix. They’re not filled with vacuum hoses, and relays, so figuring out what’s broken is usually pretty simple.

Luckily we had extra hands, or should I say fingers, to plug up the hole as I swapped out a water temperature sending unit!

The following day was Halloween, and we were encouraged to dress up, and the rallyers did not disappoint!

Josh took advantage of the settings and the costumes to take some nice photos.

Arron and John looked perfect for what was now known as “The Shaguar!”

A different Michael Myers was spotted lurking in the background!

Another stop along with way to Hilton Head Island was Kazoobie Kazoos, the last American made Kazoo manufacturer.

The hostesses gave us a tour and showed us how kazoos are made!

Business seems strong as they were manufacturing a 1000 a day!

The Two Lane Touring Team arrived in Hilton Head dressed as the drivers in Talladega Nights, and they certainly looked a little shaked and baked after all the work they did on this Rally. Good Job Boys!

Arriving in Hilton Head, Rally members were treated to all the VIP events of the Concours from film festivals, to Airport Cocktail parties.

We had a nice tour and lunch at Paris Island where the Marines train their recruits.

The airport cocktail party was fun, with preferential parking for tour cars right on the tarmac!

I always tell my customers that if they think Ferraris are expensive to maintain, they evidently have never owned a plane! I guess we all have to aspire to something!

As the sun set, the attendees arrived!

The fun part about attending these shows is you never know who you might meet. YouTube has become a popular place for car enthusiasts to watch good content, and The Car Wizard and his Wife were spotted in the crowd. Although my YouTube subscribership is tiny compared to The Wizards, he was very gracious when we were introduced.

Now that we had arrived in Hilton Head, I didn’t have to drive the Ford Expedition anymore, so I spent some time in the Lancia Intergrale HF that Jeff Lane lent the tour. I love the old style turbo lag of these cars from the 90s. It makes them so much more dramatic!

On Sunday, I found myself representing the Ferrari 330 America that was on the tour with us. The owner had caught a virus towards the end of the trip and just didn’t have the energy to show the car on Sunday. The car had come all this way, and it was shame not to bring it to the Concours, so I volunteered to show the car for the family. There was some confusion throughout the day when people saw me representing a 330 America, but it wasn’t mine. What were the chances that the owner of one of fifty 330 Americas was available to show another one in a pinch!

We were in good company in the Ferrari class!

Here were more YouTube celebrities were admiring Dr. Workman’s Mclaren F1.

On Monday morning, I decided to try and make it all the way back to NY in one shot, and managed to do it in 16 hours including stops for lunch and fuel. The Expedition performed admirably, and managed 21 miles to the gallon despite my lead foot, and hauling all the luggage through the twisty back roads. I had a blast and hope I can make it happen again on the next Rally!