[swede_fish]

I’d really love to do this, never in the winter months of course. I got lucky to purchase from a Saab shop a garage find 96 De luxe model with only 29k original miles on it, that may be nice to drive on short jaunts during the week and weekends in the summer. Barring a FAQ that I’ve missed and if so I apologize, are there common spare items that I should carry in the trunk, to avoid getting stranded?

 

[Joshinator99]

Nice! Post some pics when you can.

Great question on the spare parts. I would think as long as the car is well maintained you wouldn’t need to carry much…

 

[jvanabra]

I daily drove a Sonett for a while... It was great.

I would switch the points over to Pertronix just to get an annoying maintenance item out of the way, but beyond that it can't be much worse than my '62 Falcon which I also DD.

 

[Bob12312357]

The saga of the guy that drove his 96 country to this year's SOC in Albany sounded pretty rough. Granted, a lot of that was circumstances meeting bad luck and a cross country road trip is very different than warm weather optional daily driver.

 

[jvanabra]

I feel like most of John's problems were environmental... Mountains, traffic, road construction, etc. He had few mechanical issues. When I drove my '67 Cadillac back from Colorado, I surveyed Google maps and the weather every day before heading out to ensure I was minimizing risk. TBH, that's something I do whenever I go anywhere in unfamiliar territory, but especially in an old car. It's less of an issue around town, where you know the roads and know the conditions.

I suppose the Falcon is better suited to open roads than a 96, but maybe not by much... A two-speed auto and an inline six gives me maybe 90hp and I'm running IIRC 3000rpm at 55. Redline is 4500rpm! It's not a good freeway cruiser, so we take B roads. (The Cadillac OTOH gobbles up freeways at 75mph and doesn't care)

Probably my biggest piece of advice is that if you're in doubt, leave yourself an out... Don't end up stuck in freeway traffic when there's a side street option, etc. If you become concerned about conditions, get a cup of coffee and wait things to clear up.