Mercedes-Benz CL600 Route 66 Road Trip
This CL600 turbo is obviously cool, but the owner just made it cooler by blasting it across the United States.
For the most part, project cars are almost always incomplete. Haste often gets the best of situations when there’s a desire just to get things running. This makes flaws easy to overlook, or completely ignore. Air conditioning? Cruise control? Not needed to run. But some projects are done right. If you remember MBWorld‘s exclusive feature on Mike’s remote-turbo CL600, you’ll be happy to hear about a cross-country adventure he just completed with two cousins and a best friend.
To the Pennsylvania native, a trip west offered him the longest overall distance to travel. Santa Monica was chosen as the U-turn point to head back home. But the thousands of miles in between offered amazing memories.
Travelling in a convoy of four offered some interesting perspectives between the different vehicles. Behind the CL600 was a turbocharged Miata, an LT1-swapped Caprice, and a fairly new Malibu. The trip west took several days and offered opportunities to take in the beautiful scenery. Route 66 was used for as much as the trip as possible, with old towns and gas stations giving a glimpse of what used to be. Along the way to Santa Monica, Mike and crew made friends at local car shows, stretched the legs of their cars on wide-open roads, and experienced everything Mother Nature had to offer.
The Malibu and Caprice stayed relatively quiet the entire trip. But there were some “details” that crept up on the CL and Miata. The heat took its toll on the Mazda, causing cooling issues and a misfire. But the CL600 had oil woes. An oil return line was mended at an auto parts store, but interestingly, elevation changes near Utah made oil pressures drop to alarming levels. Once the terrain leveled out, the cars were fine and a beeline was made back toward Chicago.
After a trip like this, Mike is eager to do it again and prove just how good a modified CL600 can be eating mile after mile of highway in any state.
