Driving a 1966 Beaumont Through Autumn from Toronto to Traverse City

On paper, the plan made sense. I needed to be at Hagerty's headquarters in Traverse City, Michigan, for meetings, and flying from London straight there felt far too simple. It was autumn, the Great Lakes would be at their most colorful, and so I built a longer route: fly to Toronto, collect the 1966 Beaumont convertible that Hagerty Canada keeps on hand, and drive west via a ferry to Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. I'd break the journey at motels along the way. What could go wrong?

A Shaky Start Before Leaving the U.K.

Quite a lot, as it turned out. A five-hour delay at Heathrow meant I missed my ferry slot, and the following day was fully booked, so the route changed before I'd even left England. The delay also meant Hagerty Garage & Social in Toronto, where the car was stored, would be closed by the time I arrived. The team there kindly left the car at the airport's valet parking instead.

That handover came with its own problems. Nobody was on hand to walk me through an unfamiliar car. The headlamp switch took a while to find, and I had no idea how to open the hood. Those gaps set the tone for my first drive: I ended up on the roads of one of Canada's busiest cities at rush hour, on the Friday night of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

Relearning the Road in Toronto

North America isn't new territory for me. Years ago I spent six months in Alberta and British Columbia and bought a battered old Chevrolet to get around. In 2008 I worked in the U.S. and picked up a Florida driver's license, having persuaded an examiner I could drive by circling a car park at the Tampa DMV while he watched. Even so, the signs, habits and driving styles take readjusting to. It took me a while to remember that you can turn right on a red light when nothing's coming.

The city was packed. The light was low and blindingly bright at first, then dusk arrived as I reached Highway 400, which was running at full capacity. Huge slab-fronted trucks thundered past, and commuters jostled for position. The Beaumont's tiny rear lights and thin lap belt made me feel exposed. It took just under two hours to reach a nondescript roadside motel on the outskirts of Barrie, on the shores of Lake Simcoe. I was exhausted, relieved to be in one piece, and wondering whether the whole idea had been a mistake.

What the Beaumont Actually Is

The car, though, was a joy. The Beaumont was a Canada-only model based on the Chevrolet Chevelle and built in Oshawa, Ontario, not far from where I'd picked it up. GM created it in response to a tariff dispute between Canada and the U.S., and while the body, chassis, suspension and powertrain all came from the Chevelle, the Beaumont got its own split front grille with twin maple leaf badges, new rear lights, and a dashboard borrowed from the Pontiac GTO. This was the range-topping Sport Deluxe, with a small-block 283-cubic-inch V-8 under the hood and a two-speed Powerglide automatic. I christened mine "Bill," partly because Bill Beaumont is a name only British rugby fans of a certain age will place.

The speedometer was as vague as you'd expect from a car of this era, but the Beaumont pulled strongly at every speed and the brakes were more than adequate. The car had been freshly serviced, and the only fault I found was a small oil leak that had been spotted too late to fix. A few drips aside, it was sound.

I also couldn't stop comparing it with my own grand tourer of the same vintage, a 1967 Lancia Flaminia. The Lancia was built for comfort and style, with leather, chrome and a sweeping Superleggera aluminum body by Touring of Milan. It's a car for mountain switchbacks and lakeside cruising on Lake Garda. The Beaumont is all about muscle. Its 283 (4.7-liter) V-8 is far larger than the Lancia's 2.8 liters, and the immediacy of its power puts it a league ahead in a straight line. Inside, though, the priorities are obvious. The dash is plastic, and the panels are stamped and tinny. Money went into making the thing fast and looking the part. The handling suits the wide, open roads I was on: you drift into a corner, correct, and drift a little back again. The automatic is equally well matched to the job. You select drive, forget about it, and only think about it again when you stop.

Day Two: Fuel, Light and Lake Huron

Jet lag woke me early on day two. I was up writing until around 6 a.m., then went to check on the car. The forecast had promised mainly dry weather and around 20 degrees Celsius, similar to what I'd left in Sussex. The early morning was cold, though, and I was surprised to see the dew on the windscreen hadn't frozen.

Fuel was the next stop, and the prices were a shock in the good way. Canadian gasoline is at record levels, but I paid C$2.14 per liter for Supreme 93 RON. That's cheap next to the UK, where I usually pay close to £2 a liter for 97 or 99 RON. Converted, it worked out to roughly $5.67 a gallon in U.S. terms. The Beaumont was thirsty, but the bill was easier to live with than I'd expected.

Back on Highway 400, the place felt different. The traffic had thinned to almost nothing, and the scenery had shifted from city to a rolling expanse of trees in shades from deep red to fiery scarlet. The low sun gave that soft, warm light photographers love, a far cry from the harsh glare of the night before. I put on some Lord Huron, which suited both the mood and the landscape, and I couldn't stop smiling.

An hour later I reached Parry Sound, a small port town set in a natural harbor among the islands on the eastern edge of Lake Huron. I found the dock without trying, just as a sightseeing boat was leaving. I bought a good coffee from a tiny independent kiosk, watched a floatplane taxi out onto the bay, and had the first of many conversations that day with a passerby about the car. I unclipped the soft top and watched the electric motor fold it neatly behind the rear seats. Then I set the map to avoid highways, pressed play, and headed out of town.

It was glorious. The winding back roads were empty and lined with the trees I'd come to see, broken up by rocky outcrops and small communities. Many of the roadside billboards proudly identified those communities as First Nation. When the side roads ran out and I had to rejoin the highway, the road was still different from before: smaller, slower and more beautiful. As I pushed on toward Sudbury, the lake stretched away on my left. Huron is 183 miles across at its widest, which is more than the distance between Greece and Libya across the Mediterranean. "Great" is no exaggeration here.

Blind River, Sault Ste. Marie and the Border

That night I reached a motel in Blind River. I'd joined the Trans-Canadian Highway, known locally as the Trans-Can, just past Sudbury. It runs along Huron's north shore, but the trees had blocked the view until the town. I parked the Beaumont, checked in, and walked down to the shoreline as the last of the sun broke through clouds and glinted off the water. Manitoulin Island sat in the far distance, the place I'd originally planned to drive to. Beyond it there was only open water, with no sign of Michigan on the horizon. The restaurants were shut when I walked back, so I bought supper at a supermarket and called it a night.

Before dawn I checked the fluids and tires, packed the kit, set the satnav and the playlist, and rumbled off. I use that word on purpose. The V-8 gives a constant, deep growl, and with empty roads and good conditions I could push the car a little as the sun came up behind me.

The colors were glorious again. Early light played across the trees, the rare fields, and the deep red gambrel barns that appeared as forest gave way to farmland. Through the trees to my left, I caught glimpses of deep blue inlets. Eventually I stopped at a small harbor to watch the sun rise over the water.

An hour later I rolled into Sault Ste. Marie. The First Nation Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people called the place Bawating, or "The Place of the Rapids," and the name fits. The town sits at the point where Lake Superior meets Lake Huron, some six meters higher. The St. Marys River rapids have largely been tamed now, harnessed for hydroelectric power and bypassed by a series of locks for shipping. For the first time since Toronto, I was out of the wilderness and back among blocks, traffic lights and fast food outlets.

Sault straddles the border. I followed the signs south, crossed between the Canadian and U.S. flags on the bridge over the river, and my map app confirmed I was in Michigan. A mile on, I reached the U.S. immigration station. As a Brit driving a Canadian-registered car into the States, I was waved over. The reputation for sternness that U.S. border checks carry worldwide didn't apply that morning. The staff were fascinated by the car and friendly throughout. The officer asked where I'd come from and, a touch suspiciously, why I'd come via Sault rather than the direct route to Traverse City south of Huron. Before I could answer, he glanced at the Beaumont, said, "Oh yes, the car. I get it…" and stamped my passport.

Michigan's Coast and Its Traffic

Tolls paid and the top down as the day warmed up, I drove south on I-75 and crossed the Mackinac Bridge, with Huron on my left and Lake Michigan stretching away to the right. Once on land I left the interstate for Highway 31, choosing the longer but more scenic coastal route through Petoskey. It didn't disappoint. The autumn color was as vivid as it had been in Ontario, now mixed with the fruit farms Northern Michigan is known for.

The traffic was heavier and noticeably more upmarket. Nearly every other vehicle seemed to be a range-topping pickup, a huge RV, or a Corvette. European cars started to appear too. A Porsche 996 Turbo caught my eye, and so did an immaculate MGA with a raked racing windscreen parked outside a convenience store.

In Petoskey I stopped at a lakeside viewpoint and was approached almost immediately by a couple of men who wanted to talk about the car. By then I was used to it. In Canada, every stop seemed to bring someone wanting to chat or take a photo. In Michigan the interest was on another level, and at one point two men were queuing to talk to me. I get a bit of this with the Lancia back home, and I love talking about cars. I genuinely think that trigger for conversation is what makes this hobby special.

Arriving in Traverse City

I covered the final miles into Traverse City and pulled up at the hotel with mixed feelings. The trip had covered just over 600 glorious miles in this car, and the Beaumont hadn't missed a beat. I was tired, but I'd found towns, views and roads I expect to remember for a long time. The drive was over, and I already missed it. Still, the trip wasn't finished. Soon I'd head south toward Detroit, then turn west back to Toronto and the flight home.

For anyone thinking about a similar trip, my read is this: the scenery and the car make the effort worthwhile, but the logistics need more planning than they look like on a map. Build in a buffer for flight delays, get a full handover on the controls before leaving the lot, and expect a rough first evening if you're dropped into rush hour. Once you're clear of the cities, it's a memorable way to see the Great Lakes.

Huge thanks to Nicholas Keith of Hagerty Canada and the rest of his team, who made this road trip possible by preparing and delivering the car, and by answering my persistent questions while I was on the road.