An Autumn Road Trip, Chapter 1: A fun thing happened to us on the way to…
Words and photos: Steve Johnson
After reading Oklahoma Chapter President Eric Climer’s article on MidCon Mountain Rally 2024 in quattro Magazine issue Q1_2025 it sounded like it would make a great last road trip of the year before winter arrived. So I contacted Eric, confirmed the date for the 2025 event, and began planning. If I was going to load up our S5 and drive over 1,100 miles (one-way) I was going to make the most of it. Here in Chapter 1 you’ll read about our trip westward.
Google Maps calculates two primarily interstate routes for a trip from Waynesboro, Virginia, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We took the southern route, I-81S to I-40W, on the way west because there were destinations on a northern route we wanted to hit on our return trip which I’ll cover in Chapter 3. Three days were planned to get to Tulsa and the first day’s drive objective was to cover some distance so day two could be a fun day.
About 90 minutes into the second day’s drive we stopped at the Lane Motor Museum. It was easy to find off the interstate and the exit is just before where I-40 merges with I-24 so we avoided a big traffic back-up. The museum’s website says it’s “Home to the largest European automotive collection in the U.S.” and their tagline is “Unique Cars From A-Z”. I have to agree; there’s entire herd of unicorns there. If it’s small, quirky, or one-of-a-kind, it now lives at Lane.
I knew two Auto Unions family members were there and saw their new addition: a 1933 Framo Piccolo. Backstory: Jergen Rasmussen, a DKW founder and key person in Auto Union’s founding, established Framo GmbH in 1923. The company began by suppling parts to DKW then developed their own three-wheeled and other commercial vehicles in 1927. The pictured Piccolo is one of the prototypes for the 1934 model that Framo intended to be a “people’s car for Germany. The Volkswagen Beetle won that honor but the Piccolo certainly fits that utilitarian mold. Its DKW engine is mid-mounted and it’s rear wheel drive so it might handle better than it looks.
I knew two Auto Unions family members were there and saw their new addition too: a 1933 Framo Piccolo. Backstory: Jergen Rasmussen, a DKW founder and key person in Auto Union’s founding, established Framo GmbH in 1923. The company began by suppling parts to DKW then developed their own three-wheeled and other commercial vehicles in 1927. The pictured Piccolo is one of the prototypes for the 1934 model that Framo intended to be a “people’s car for Germany. The Volkswagen Beetle won that honor but the Piccolo certainly fits that utilitarian mold. Its DKW engine is mid-mounted and it’s rear wheel drive so it might handle better than it looks.
The two aforementioned Auto Union family members are beautiful examples of how car styling evolved from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. In yellow is a 1958 1000 and in coral (guessing on the color name) is a 1962 1000 SP. The former is a Best in Show winner in 2011 and 2012 and still looks the part. The latter carries some patina and has styling reminiscent of a mid-1950s Thunderbird, AKA, the baby bird. It was cool to see them side-by-side for comparison’s sake.
The final Auto Union family member at Lane is a 1969 NSU 1200 TT, AKA, the Prinz. The car’s TT badge should look familiar. When Mr. Freeman Thomas designed the Mark I TT he gave new life to this TT logo. This little fun machine is powered by a 1.2-liter air-cooled inline four cylinder engine and only has 18,800 miles on the odometer. It was clearly one of the best looking original cars on display at the museum the day we visited. I say “on display” because they have more cars than room to show them all. You can see the rest of the collection if you take a Vault Tour offered twice on most Saturdays and Sundays. I would have liked to stay longer but it was time to hit the road again.
Day two ended about four hours later, an hour into Arkansas, staring into a setting sun painfully aligned with I-40W in places. It was time to rest for the night because the interstate around Memphis is a lot like driving through a plowed field. And if you ever see a silver Toyota there with the driver’s side dented from hood to trunk be advised, it will make moves in traffic that no one wants to be close to.
Our final day’s drive toward the Oklahoma border included some beautiful scenery. We noted that the trees were getting shorter and less numerous the closer we got to the border. Driving into OK the vista took on my preconceived notion of what the state would look like—flat and brown. The Oklahoma Tourism Information Center/rest stop off I-40 reminded us of the rest areas we saw in the Sioux country of South Dakota on our way to TT West in 2022. After three days we said good-bye to I-40 as we exited for lunch at Sallies Cafe in Checotah. I’d say it’s where the locals eat and give it four stars.
From Checotah it was all state highways to Tulsa and the closer we got, the flatter the land and straighter the roads became. Wait, weren’t we headed to the MidCon Mountain Rally? My wife and I know what mountains look like and there were none to be seen here. So just where would this rally take place? Read about that in Chapter 2 of An Autumn Road Trip.
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