The best drives are the ones you never planned

I still remember the moment when I decided to ignore the navigation app.

It was a Friday evening and I had just picked up an old, classic Mazda MX-5 NA that I had been looking for months if not longer, not the kind of car you really want to drive on the motorway! The red paint was a bit dull from decades of sumn and there was some rust in the usual places. But, it had a fantastic gearbox that requires a firm hand and fantastic handling, which made you overlook all its other flaws. I hadn't booked a hotel and I had not planned a route. All I had was a full tank, a free weekend and the knowledge that France was somewhere south of where I was (the Netherlands).

"Let's just go for a drive," I said to myself.

I left the next morning and I ignored the one thing every nav app is designed for; to take the fastest route. I took the roads that got me through forests and past villages whose names I really couldn't remember the moment I left them behind. There was no arrival time. No one was waiting for me. It was just me, my little MX-5 and a road that kept disappearing over the next hill.

Every so often a tourist sign for a scenic viewpoint would show up, a historic village, a waterfall etc. Normally, I would have driven straight by, what you do when you're actually going somewhere. But this time, I turned in and stopped. I was treated with views across valleys, villages, forrests, mountains that I'll probably never see again. I stopped by a llittle a church that had clearly been standing there since any car existed. At one time, there was just a boring car park next to the road.

Later that midday the smell of fresh bread pulled me off the road. I parked my MX-5 that by now I loved even more, in a spot that could generously be described as "sort of a parking space" and a few minutes later I was sitting on a the village square with a baguette and no plan whatsoever. You just can not schedule these moments. But you can be lucky enough to be driving slowly enough to even notice it.

By late afternoon I really didn't know where I was. Not that I was lost, but I just lost track. I found a café, ordered a coffee and opened the map on my phone to see where I was. That evening I found a small restaurant that served me a meal that wasn't even very special but I still remember it more clearly than most meals I've had since then.

Nothing was planned, I was completely free. And that's exactly why I still think about it.

Some cars aren't built for efficiency but for fun

Most of our driving trips are planned down to the minute. The navigation app finds the fastest and most fuel-efficient route, reroutes you around traffic jams and provides the exact arrival time. While it's efficient and perfect for getting from A to B, it can be the enemy of the occasional fun drive.

But some cars were never meant to play that game. My little MX-5 with the roof down, an old grand tourer with a v8 that guzzles fuel, a youngtimer that you've bought because it gives you something that its modern equivalent with its tablets and safety beeps, could never give you. A motorcyle that comes into its own on a quiet, winding road. You don't buy this sort of vehicle because it's the quickest or best way to get from A to B. You buy them because for those few hours of freedom, there is no B.  

The joy of not knowing where you are going

There's something truly liberating about not knowing how your day will unfold or what you'll be doing in an hour. Perhaps you'll come across a mountain pass that you'll be talking about for years to come. Perhaps you'll stumble upon a car meet in a village and spend an hour chatting to a stranger about his old Citroën. Perhaps it's just an empty road, beautiful sunlight and nothing else. Not every journey tells a story. But you'll only discover those stories if you're open to them and actually take that exit.

Why we do this?

Ask any car enthusiast about their best drive and they'll never mention that 0 to 60 sprint at the traffic lights. They'll probably talk about that bakery they discovered because they took a wrong turn, or that square with the best ice-cream shop they found after taking the wrong exit. The hotel in an impossible location that they booked ten minutes before check-in.  

That's precisely the beauty of great cars - the classics, the ‘youngtimers', the cars with a bit of soul and a touch of history. You won't get there any faster in them. They remind you that it was never really about the destination, but that the drive itself was what mattered most.

That's also why, at Breaqs, we devote our time to cars like these, rather than to cars built purely to get us from A to B. The cars listed on our platform all have a story: a previous owner, a restoration, a reason why someone fell in love with it in the first place. And we hope that you'll be the one to write the next chapter of that story.

This summer, turn the sat-nav off, take the road that looks interesting. Stop for that bread when you are hungry. And if the drive reminds you it might be time for a different car, well, you know where to look.

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