I think I’m glad that I never had any occasion to see route 66 or any of the places it traverses
There were parts in the southwest that were cool. But the drive between Chicago and Albuquerque was a pretty good snooze-fest.
This article appeared today as if it was published for you and your nephew!
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/route-66-then-and-now/ss-BBVShbq?li=BBnb7Kz
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Traveling west on I-40 many years ago I was forced to detour onto old Route 66 for several miles and it was a trip to the Twilight Zone. It was a surprise that there wasn’t much traffic and the only civilization in the half hour drive was a 2 block long town with all the buildings on the south side of the road and I stopped at an adobe building for a cold drink and gas and saw a sign at the front door with an arrow pointing to the REST ROOM which was a toilet mounted on a wooden platform on the empty side of the street. There was a shower curtain hung on a large ring to give the lucky occupant some privacy if the wind wasn’t blowing.
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Before your nephew buys a car, you need to check on getting auto insurance with a non US license. Also, being under 25 is a high premium. He may have to get an Il driver’s license.
Thanks for that. Pretty good pictures!
Thanks for your contributions everybody! A lot of good ideas and thoughts in there. I shared the thread with my nephew and he found it useful. He left Chicago yesterday, and I just got a picture of him next to the statue of Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man (8’-11"+) in Alton, Illinois, across the river St. Louis.
There were a number of challenges to buying a car as a visitor (3 month tourist visa) and as somebody without a permanent residence here. I called the DMV and visited once, and got two suggestions. The first was to get a temporary 30-day drive-away registration. That would have gotten him where he needed to go, but to sell the car he would need a permanent residence somewhere on the other end, and nobody that I called in CA (Carmax, DMV) could say what would happen for sure if he tried to sell the car there like that. They warned he would have to pay to get it smogged, and possibly pay for safety inspections, other mystery fees, who knows. The other suggestion was that we write up a lease showing he was living at my house (which he was) as a legal agreement, and that would allow him to title and register the car here in Illinois. We did that but ended up not using it. The seller was a guy named Marco, an independent used car dealer, acting as a middle man, buying used cars at dealer auctions, and selling them, which allows him to carry the title over without having to title it himself. That situation allowed him to transfer the title directly from the previous owner to my nephew, using my address as his. This way the DMV wasn’t in charge of verifying my nephew’s address, only Marco was, and he didn’t seem to need to worry about that.
Insuring the car was no problem. Progressive was willing to insure him with his Dutch and international license, but was double or triple the price he got from Farmer’s, as he has an unproven record and managing risk more tightly is what Progressive is all about. My State Farm office around the corner would have done it at a comparable price, but he went with Farmer’s in the end.
He ended up buying a 2006 Honda Pilot. (Talked Marco down from $4,200 to $3,600.) We drove 5 or 6 of these, and this was the best of the batch by a mile. These were all shown by these guys who buy the older used trade-in cars that the bona fide car dealers don’t want to have on their lots and turn over to the auctioneers. One guy had one that he said “needs nothing”- except a cliff to drive it off of. That was the biggest hunka junk I’d ever driven- suspension shot, running rough, hole in the exhaust, sounded like a loose ratchet set under the hood. The only one being sold privately was from a Ukrainian couple and the back left window was not working- it’s not that it wouldn’t go down, it wouldn’t go UP. They were really irked that we mentioned it twice, as though it was rude to bring up a flaw with their beautiful rusty dented car, and certainly shouldn’t have been a factor in whether we bought the car or not. This was the first clear day after it had rained for 6 days straight. They thought it was crazy that we suggested they try to fix the window before they sell it, and when I told them “Thanks, we’ll call you in a few days after we’ve looked at other cars,” he said “Don’t bother.” Two days later he called me and said he had gotten the window fixed.
The Pilot he got was like new in comparison- some wear on the fabric interior but otherwise seemed to be just fine all the way around, with the lowest mileage of any we’d seen, 152K. It drove strong, smooth, and almost silently, handled well, everything works. We took it to my mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection and they recommended he buy it. He drove it around here and on the highway for 3 days before leaving and it performed flawlessly.
His intention is to use Route 66 as a general guideline to get west, not to trace every mile of it as a quest. Whatever Americana he wants to memorialize along the way, he will capture with style as he has a good camera and real photography skills. He may peel off to the north before Nevada and explore Utah’s national parks, and may go as far north as Montana. Nobody knows, not even him!
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Me at the Robert Wadlow Statue. I’m 6’ tall. He’s not as tall as he looks- those shoes have pretty thick heels.
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So I’m curious, did Marco have a brick and mortar place of business?
Because this sounds a lot like a curbstoner. The idea being, Marco doesn’t leave any paper trail linking him to the cars he sells. And if anything does go wrong, he can’t be found. It sounds like your deal worked out, just curious about the transaction…
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Glad to hear you found a car for him. It’s probably more car than he needs but has enough room to sleep in. A far cry from the $300 Pontiac in 1960 for my German student friend!
For a foreigner travelling across the USA it’s mandatory to deviate to see all the natural as well as cultural attractions. The AAA tour books I’ve found very valuable as well as state info offices.
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Noooo, bricks and mortar cost money. This was a low-overhead operation. All but one of the people we came across were doing this. And the one guy we tried to buy from privately, he said, “Come out to see the car now,” and we got in the car for the half hour drive to get there. Ten minutes into the drive he texts us and says, “Sorry, somebody came and looked at the car and bought it.” What?! In ten minutes? Who buys a car in ten minutes? Who knows. I’ve bought a handful of cars in this range over the years, but we had a real streak of weirdos this time.
We also got to meet Freddy on his lot, the last of the old time used car salesman, right out of a movie. Actually his grandfather started the first used car lot in Chicago in the 1930s (really??) and handed it down. Freddy had the bad suit and the big handshake and the wide tie and the jokes and patter, but was actually a nice guy.
Yeah, there are some gray areas there. We did the registration and title transfer at a currency exchange, and that lent it all some legitimacy as they have no room to cut corners- just add fees, but even that was negotiable. Yes, Marco & Co. (“Luis”) offered no guarantees but were generous in letting us have the car for 1/2 a day to get it checked out. And I always assume if you buy a used car and if it dies the next day, that’s the deal. Happened to me once, buying an old car in New Zealand. The nice old couple sold me the car but not before trying to help me see the light and accept their savior as mine. They did their best but I don’t have the gene for that and I was on my way. A little while later the car craps out on me and I call them up and ask for a little help with the repair bill, and they wouldn’t give me the time of day and then stopped answering the phone. So much for feeding the hungry.
Yeah, I tried to steer him toward something like a Honda Odyssey, but I think he may have preferred the once-in-a-lifetime chance to drive a Pilot, which he’s not gonna do in $8 a gallon Holland. Also, he needs the space- 6’-4". We looked at Subarus, BMW X5, CRV- not big enough for him. And he may be driving some dirt roads on BLM land/national parks, etc. He might have gotten something with a few more amenities for that price if it were a boring minivan, but he’s really happy with it. He’s in the Ozarks now, having fun…
@Mikedrives Good! None of my Dutch relatives own large cars or large SUVs. Last time there gas was 2 Euros per liter, $ 7.80 or so a gallon. And heavy, large engine vehicles have a hefty sales tax; a Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 sell for about 90,000 dollars there.
The wide open spaces is what Europeans like most about North America. Holland has 17 million people living on 13,000 square miles! One of the most densely populated countries on earth.
On a recent holiday in the Canadian Rockies I met a Belgian tourist who had shipped his motorhome to Halifax, Nova Scotia and was doing his dream vacation driving across Canada and returning via the USA. A pretty pricy trip but he was a successful business owner just retiring.
Not that it matter much, but what happened to the last 3000 square miles? 
I’m sure they need them.
According to Einsteins and my calculations, the correct number is 16039 sq.miles, but okay, he could be wrong. 
The 13,000 square miles is a rough number. When I was in grade school there the area was 33,000 sq km. which would be about 13,000 sq miles.
Since that time the Dutch have added considerable amount of land so the present area would be somewhat larger.
Also, there is considerable water area within borders, which the Dutch don’t count, so your “Einsteins” may have the whole area inside the external perimeter as area and the extra 3000 square miles would be water.
The Dutch government would be very happy to have 16,000 sq miles of arable land!!!
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Could be that it’s 16,000 sq. miles at low tide, and 13,000 miles at high tide. 26% of Holland is below sea level.
@Mikedrives A country’s area is usually everything inside its international boundaries. So Lake Michigan would be part of the USA area, but not the other Great Lakes. Russia cannot claim the Caspian Sea in its area.
Holland has changed considerably sine the great flood of 1953. Several Sea Arms were diked off and more land was created form the sea. Now they can call all the area diked in, land and water in their area, if they chose to do so. That makes the country bigger.
Not sure where Einstein get their info.
I’m not used to separating fly specs from black pepper; life it too short.
I considered BMW
A 1950’s Pontiac Bonneville or Catalina or Star Chief… Just to get that “Kicks on Route 66” vibe right and proper… This is of course assuming that we are talking about the real, full bore, intact Route 66 of yesteryear… I’m just dreaming of course… You’d need a 4x4 to drive the route these days wouldn’t you?
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I always visualized the Route 66 car to be a Pontiac as well, but the GTO would be my choice. Stereo blaring of course.
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