Five roads worth the day rate.
We keep these written up because the question everybody asks at handover is where should I actually go, and "wherever you like" is a useless answer.
Drag to pan · click the map, then scroll, to zoomOpenStreetMap tiles, restyled to this page in the browser
The Woodward run
Straight up M-1 from the river to Pontiac and back — eight lanes, wide medians, and the road the Dream Cruise happens on every August. It is the obvious route and it is obvious for a reason: this is the street these cars were sold on, and driving one up it is the closest thing to seeing them in their own context.
Stop at: the Redford for a coffee, Vinsetta Garage in Berkley for lunch — it was a garage from 1919 and still looks like one. Avoid: Friday evenings between 4 and 6, when it stops being a drive.
Belle Isle loop
An island park in the middle of the Detroit River with a single road round the outside of it, a 25 mph limit and a view of the Canadian shore the whole way. The shortest route we recommend and the best one for a first hour in an unfamiliar car — no junctions, no traffic to speak of, and somewhere to stop every hundred yards.
Stop at: the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, an Albert Kahn glasshouse from 1904. Note: there is a vehicle entry fee at the bridge; we do not cover it.
The lake road
Jefferson out through Grosse Pointe and then north along the shore of Lake St Clair to New Baltimore. Open water on your right for most of it, big houses on your left, and a surface that is genuinely good — which matters more than it sounds when the suspension was designed in 1959.
This is the one we actually recommend. The Woodward run is the famous drive; this is the better one, and on a clear evening with the roof down it is the best two hours you can buy from us.
The Rouge run
West to Dearborn, past the Rouge complex — the plant where Ford took in iron ore at one end and rolled finished cars out the other. Industrial, flat and not pretty, and the single most appropriate place in the world to drive one of these.
Stop at: the Henry Ford Museum if you have three hours, the observation deck if you have one. Note: some of the plant roads are private. The public route is signed and we mark it on the paper map we hand you.
Huron River to Ann Arbor
South-west out of the city and then along the Huron River valley into Ann Arbor. This is the only route on the list with real corners in it, and it is the reason we suggest the Mustang: it is the lightest car in the building and the only one that genuinely enjoys a bend.
Be honest with yourself about the brakes here. A drum-braked car on an unfamiliar descending curve is where people get frightened. Take it at eight tenths and it is a wonderful road; take it at ten and it will not be.
The fleet does not run in winter, and it is not because we are precious.
Michigan salts its roads heavily from November, and salt is what actually kills cars of this age — not mileage, not weather, not use. Every car here comes off the road for the winter and goes back on it in April. We would rather lose five months of rentals than lose a car.
Pick the car for the road.
Every route above names one. That is not a sales device — a big-block on a tight river road is genuinely less fun than a light one, and we would rather you enjoyed the day.