Great Drives in the Hudson Valley and Other Unexpected Destinations

Filed in archive Canadian Cars , Great Drives on November 15, 2007

Perhaps it's the romantic in me but I've always been attracted to articles headed "Great Drives." The first that I can recall appeared in Autosport magazine back in the 80's; an excellent series although there may have been others before then. My only attempt at writing a Great Drives feature was in a Pontiac Canada brochure that GM's ad agency hired me to write. Because Pontiac's USP was performance (more imagined than real) I related each model to a different area of of the country where driving might be fun. What exaggerations! For example, I chose British Columbia's Vancouver Island roads, extolling the twists and turns and mountain climbs and descents as ideal for the Pontiac Grand Prix. Now that I live in that very place I realise that heavy traffic makes any attempt at performance downright dangerous. Which leads me to finally admit that a great drive is about the scenery, the unique places to visit, the local museums, the eating places, and only if you're very, very lucky, a sequence of curves with no other cars in sight.

Business Week magazine, with an understanding of what a Great Drive is all about, suggests taking one through the New York Hudson Valley. Now, that I can relate to... first as a sometime visitor from Toronto, later when working as an ad agency copywriter for J. Walter Thompson in Manhattan. Most of my early Toronto-New York trips were made by overnight train and nothing could beat dining car breakfasts alongside the Hudson River enroute to our destination in Grand Central Station. When my family and I were finally settled in advertising's mecca we frequently sought our own Great Drives, only to learn that there wasn't a square inch of unfenced territory where we could pull off, enjoy a picnic with a bottle of red wine, and after a few hours relaxing under the sun head home. Now older and perhaps a little wiser, I'd judge my great drives differently. It's the destination, not the drive, that matters most.

The image seen here is from that 1994 Pontiac brochure, art directed by Ray Fry, copy by yours truly.