Road-Trippers

There is a skill set required for road tripping that falls outside the normal criteria used to rate cars. Twenty thousand satisfying and comfortable miles commuting in a Nissan 350Z, for example, did not intimate that halfway across the United States yours truly would be lying flat at a rest stop, back in full spasm after 14 hours in seats as free of lumbar support as an ironing board. Otherwise forgettable cars such as the Buick Lucerne, however, are damn fine choices for going straight.

 

Other caveats apply. The thrum of tires, which you might not notice around town, can quash your happiness on the open road like a nine-year-old going through Adderall withdrawal behind you on a transcontinental flight. When you leave the cushion of public radio behind and the only available stations either twang at you or provide frequent assurance that you’re going to hell, amenities such as satellite radio and built-in hard drives are mighty attractive. Kids in the back? A DVD entertainment system is an indispensable ally.

 

You worry less about lumbar, comfort, and ride when you’re road trippin’ on a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, and laughers, but we’re not all gonzo, and we need vehicles that fill the bill—comfortable, smooth, and sometimes fast. We offer you five vehicles, all uniquely equipped to offer hauling happiness based on your cash, accouterment, and load requirements.

 

If automotive history had a greatest-hits album, the Porsche Boxster would decorate the liner notes. It’s been the yardstick by which not just convertibles, but sports cars, too, have been measured around Car and Driver. If we need to remember what proper balance, steering, and brakes should feel like, we bludgeon the staffer holding its keys and wrest them from his or her bitter grasp.

 

Thanks partly to the first-generation Corvette convertible that cruised Route 66 in the eponymous series, the open road will always be associated with droptops even if, in reality, open sky and hours of open road mean sunburned domes, wind-chapped faces, and lots of wind noise. Not that you’ll care when helming the Boxster, however, as mechanically and spiritually, it soothes. There are seats for only two, but each of you gets your own trunk (there’s one in the front and one in the rear) capable of storing as much luggage as you’ll need for adventure.

 

While you’re blissed out at the Boxster’s controls, you’ll be instructing your well-coddled passenger to search the map for squiggly lines intersecting your route, the better to properly demonstrate balance rivaled only by cars costing many times the price of the none-too-cheap Boxster. 

 

During kids’ years attired in OshKosh B’Gosh, a longitudinal seam in the upholstery of the back seat dictates the no-fly zone for siblings, and incursions are punished with Pixy Stix–powered angst. In the Honda Odyssey, a peaceable kingdom is born of enough interior volume to give each child his or her own ZIP Code and everyone’s favorite digital Ritalin, an optional DVD player.

 

“Fun to drive” is not a phrase usually employed in minivan reviews, but the Odyssey turns in as if it means it, resists body roll, and relegates the rest of the herd of minivans to dawdling through life like the bovine living rooms on wheels they are.

 

You’ll be happier going straight for long distances, however, relishing the Odyssey’s outstanding ergonomics, quality materials and finish, and SUV-shaming utility. The Odyssey hauls sheets of plywood, lengths of pipe, and even tall appliance boxes as if it had a pickup bed and will just as happily haul your family of eight cross-country. The more expensive EX-L and Touring models boast the VCM cylinder-deactivation function that bumps highway mileage to 25 mpg, the best of any full-size minivan.