Today is the last day of the Benny 500 Tour of western Massachusetts. This tour is put on by Parker Roaf and his wife Sherri. The purpose of the tour is to raise money for the Bennet Foundation which works with local vocational schools to expose kids to antique auto repair. This is something I completely support.
Last night was the tour wrap up dinner and today we are traveling to the American Heritage Museum in Hudson Mass. Normally I would wait to post this to make sure I don't jinx making it home but we are only 25 miles away at this point.
Later today I'll go in to more detail with more pictures of what the tour was like. Total tour was about 500 miles and we had 18 cars, 15 of which were prewar.
https://www.bennettautofoundation.org/tour
500 miles in western Mass.? Were you doing laps?😉
Travis, easier than you think if you include NY and central Mass. We started in Rutland on Tuesday, drove to Stockbridge to the Red Lion that was our host hotel. That was around 80 miles. Next day Wed we went to Kingston NY and back. That was 160 miles right there. On back roads the miles add up a lot faster. On Thursday we drove to the top of Mount Greylock, 16 miles from the base to the summit and back alone. Then back to the Norman Rockwell Museum. The museum is only 5 miles from the hotel but the return route took an hour as we looped west and south and then back up again. So on that day you are not far off I guess. Friday was Stockbridge to Sturbridge to visit Sturbridge Village. Friday night was at the Wellsworth Hotel which was built out of the old American Optical Factoin Southbridge Mass. Today, Saturday is driving to Hudson Mass to the American Heritage museum where I believe we are meeting a bunch of the voke students.
Tour prep is a big deal and we spent months trying to get this car properly sorted. It ended up running great with the only issue an occasional backfire through the carb on the hills at 50 mph. This became more frequent towards the end of the week. I believe the issue is the mixture is too lean on the high speed jet. I want to find a hill nearby and reproduce the problem before I mess with it.
We used my friends 38 Buick Century convertible coupe. Cruises easily at 60 mph. Not huge, easy to drive and handle. A nice car. But not a lot of room for touring. There was a luggage truck but we still needed to get to the starting point at Parker's shop which is about 25 miles away.
So where the extra spare would go I packed all the parts for the car. Small floor jacks, spare battery, jumpers, tool kit, ignition parts, etc. I put my 18V kit in the rumbleseat on the floor, that included my Impact driver. Behind the seat went the two suitcases, my backpack and my wifes extra bag. On the package shelf went a case of water and everything else. There was still room on the floor of the rumbleseat just hard to get to.
Thanks for sharing!!
Day 1 was breakfast at Parker's Packards in Rutland MA. After brunch and a drivers meeting we headed out to the "Mount" Elizabeth Wharton's mansion in Lenox MA. We had snacks and drinks on the patio and then a guided tour of the mansion. If you go get the tour. It makes it much better. From there we went to the Red Lion Inn famous in the Normal Rockwell painting of main street in Stockton Mass. In his painting the Inn was closed as it was December. The Inn is now open year round.
Here are all the cars lined up in front of the Inn on the first night.
Pictures in front of the hotel.
If you have never been to the Red Lion it is definitely a unique experience. My wife and I were there 18 months ago and I was happy to see they are doing renovations. It has been a continuously operating Inn for something like 200 years. Here is a picture of the lobby.
Sounds like a fun tour. Plenty of good driving roads in that part of the state. I’m hoping to do a day trip up to Greylock this summer. We usually do it every year or so, driving modern, but I’d like to try it with the old car.
As far as incline goes it was probably the 3rd highest grade we did during the week. The road is narrow but we only passed one car coming the other way. One of the cars that climbed was a Model A so I think anything post 1925 can make the climb.
We did get stuck sitting 2/3 of the way up when one of the cars at the front of the pack stalled and couldn't restart. That was fun, but fortunately it was only about 75 degrees up there.
I’m assuming that you went up and came down the southern road from Rt 7? The northern road to North Adams wouldn’t be very prewar friendly. The descent would be more of a concern for me.
We came up the southern road. It is 8 miles from base to peak. On the way down I kept in in second gear the whole way and it was not scary at all. I saw scarier grades in upstate NY last month.
The lodge and tower at the top are cool and there is plenty of parking. The tower was unlocked so we go to climb to the top. I guess that it is periodically open.
On Wednesday we had our longest driving day (160 miles) to Kingston NY on the Hudson river. An historic town located on the Rondout creek it was briefly the capital of NY state during the revolutionary war. We did a 90 minute ferry ride out to the Hudson and down the river a bit. Interesting lighthouses and abandoned boats along the way.
My wife and I have visited Kingston. Cool town with a lot of boat building history. Particularly steam boats. There is a canal at the other end of the creek that went all the way into Pennsylvania coal country.
I wish I took some pictures of the restaurant we had lunch in. Former Steam Boat factory building right on the creek. Maybe 80x50 clear span with a 35-40 foot ceiling. Cool town.
Here are some car photos. The 300SL was clearly the fastest car on the tour. The 1928 Packard 6 was the oldest. The Ford Model A was the most impressive. There were routes that required 50 mph an hour and he was able to do them. Including climbing Mount Greylock.
Tour finished on Saturday at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson Mass. We had lunch in the hangar and got access to the car barn and the museum.
Here is the inside of the Hangar.
Part of the museum.
A.J. you hired for marketing! You did an absolutely fantastic job of summing up the tour!
You guys deserve a lot of credit. Putting a tour together is a pain in the rear end. Most importantly Pam had a great time which is really all that matters, right?