Roads / firsthand
Roads worth taking the long way home.
Where the car goes, what the road asks of it, and what each drive changed.
01 / THE FIRST FEATURE
West Texas to Phoenix, and what the heat found.
In 2025 I drove the Andial from Big Bend up to Phoenix. Most of it is two-lane road and open desert, with mountains on the horizon and the heat on the car all day. The engine took it. The head temperature I log held steady, about a degree above where it normally sits.
The DME relay did not. It overheated on that run, and that one part started the relay project.
The car had earned the trip. Zaks Auto spent about eight months on its refresh first. I took it to Thompson, Palmer and Watkins Glen that year, then pointed it west.
02 / THE LOOP
About forty-two hours.
The whole loop came to about 42 hours: Alpine, New Mexico, Phoenix, back to Alpine, then east to Luftgekühlt in Durham, North Carolina, and home. An eight-hour day in this car is easy. Years of driving in Germany changed how distance feels to me.
A long trip is the honest test. A track day finds the limits of grip and brakes. A week of heat and distance finds the parts that are tired.
03 / WHAT CHANGED
One relay doing two jobs.
On the 993 the DME relay also fed the fuel pump. In July 2026 I replaced the fuse-panel circuit board and most of the older relays. The pump now runs from its own Hella relay, fed from the battery post through a 30 A fuse, and the original DME relay output only switches that relay’s coil. The pump current no longer passes through the DME relay.
The pump is part of the fuel delivery story, calibrated with the injectors and the regulator.
04 / CLOSER TO HOME
Early starts in New Hampshire.
At home the drives are shorter and start early. A day on the Kancamagus and the White Mountains begins around six in the morning, with coffee when an independent shop opens at seven, and I am home by two or three in the afternoon.
Most weeks it is a loop of one to four hours, out to a neighbourhood coffee shop with a real espresso machine, and back.
THE FLAT6 ROADS LIST
A road goes on this list when I have driven it in this car. Each entry says where it runs, what it asks of the car, when I go and one thing worth knowing. No rankings. The list grows as the stories do.
01
Big Bend to Phoenix
Texas · New Mexico · Arizona
- The road
- Two-lane desert roads and long highway stretches between Big Bend and Phoenix.
- When I went
- 2025, in the heat of late summer.
- Worth knowing
- Sustained heat tested the electrical parts before it tested the engine. On my car, the DME relay was the weak point.
02
US 90 past Prada Marfa
West Texas
- The road
- Open desert highway. Prada Marfa stands beside it, about a mile west of Valentine.
- When I went
- August 2025.
- Worth knowing
- It is a good place to stop and photograph the car with nothing else in the frame.
03
Kancamagus Highway
New Hampshire · NH 112
- The road
- About 34.5 miles through the White Mountain National Forest, between Lincoln and Conway.
- When I go
- Early starts, home by mid-afternoon.
- Worth knowing
- Fill up in Lincoln or Conway before you start.
04
The coffee loop
Southern New Hampshire
- The road
- Back roads out to an independent coffee shop and home again.
- When I go
- Most weeks, one to four hours.
- Worth knowing
- Choose the shop first and build the loop around it.
05
Thompson, Palmer and Watkins Glen
Connecticut · Massachusetts · New York
- The road
- Three circuits, driven before the trip west.
- When I went
- 2025.
- Worth knowing
- A track day is the place to find a weakness before a long trip does.
NEXT
The car behind these drives: The Andial, still evolving →