If you were offered any car you wanted and were offered $1,000,000 to drive from California to New York City in a day and a half by yourself, what car would you choose and how would you do it?

If you were offered any car you wanted and were offered $1,000,000 to drive from California to New York City in a day and a half by yourself, what car would you choose and how would you do it?

This is actually entirely doable.

And right up my alley since I’ve done several dozen 1000+ mile drives in my life. So… thanks for the million bucks.

The closest spot I could find in California to New York was Needles, CA.

According to Google Maps, this trip is 2,521 miles and is expected to take 37 hours. If I squeeze it down to 36, that puts me at just over 70 mph to make the trip, which is not even that fast, all considered. 74 mph would give me a comfortable buffer. Certainly I won’t need a fancy sports car.

To put it into comparison, I’ve driven from Orlando to Boston (1300 miles) in 20 hours before, as well as Boston-Ames in 18 hours, which is pretty much right on par with the kind of distance/speed we’re going to need here.

So, to answer your question:

The Car:

The BMW 7 series gets over 500 miles on a full tank. I thought about going for the Kia Optima Hybrid which can get 700+, but frankly that’s overkill. I’ll stop one or two more times for gas and keep the better car, TYVM.

The Method:

Pack lots of food, sodas, and a radar detector. Then put the route into Waze, turn on a good audiobook, set cruise control to 74mph (or higher when the speed limit allows), and don’t stop until you get there or until the tank runs low.

Big concerns/objections:

What about sleep?

I’m used to pulling all nighters. 36 hours is tame.

What about food?

Sandwiches are the boring answer, but they really do work.

What about going to the bathroom?

You can actually avoid doing anything drastic on this front, since your vehicle necessitates a stop for gas every 7 hours or so. All you have to do is sync up your bathroom breaks and your gas breaks. If you’re good at managing your bladder (I am), this is easy to achieve.

1. Go to the bathroom every time you stop. It doesn’t matter if you feel like you have to go. Force yourself to empty your bladder every time you stop.
2. Don’t drink too much water. It’s ok to be a bit dehydrated on a long car trip, because you ought to be carrying water. Worst case scenario: you get thirsty so you open up a bottle and take a sip.
1. Drink slowly, so you can stop as soon as the thirst passes
2. Gatorade > water because more electrolytes with less fluid.
3. Bring a salty cracker-type snack (pretzels, crackers, etc). If you feel the need to pee, start munching. The salt and bread will absorb a lot of the water, reducing the urge to go.
1. Eat slowly. You’ll feel sick if you fill up on junk food.

What about gas?

Well, you notice I said 74mph, not 70? At that speed, the trip can be completed in 34 hours, giving me 2 hours for gas stops. Since the BMW gets 500 miles of range, I’ll only have to stop 5–6 times for gas, giving me a leisurely 20 minutes per stop.

Not that I’ll take it, of course. 5 minutes to fill the tank then back on the road. I don’t wanna get screwed if something unexpected goes wrong.

What about traffic?

Great question. So this route passes only 6 major cities: Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, and New York. The rest of the route is pretty rural.

The most concerning one is NYC, which means we want to arrive there sometime when traffic will be minimal. Weekday early morning (12am-5am).

Working backwards, we see we hit:

Columbus (-8 hrs)

Indianapolis (-11 hrs)

St. Louis (-14.5 hrs)

Oklahoma City (-21.5 hrs)

Albuquerque (-5 hrs, really -29 hrs)

So if we leave at 5pm, then we’ll pass Albuquerque at 12am, Oklahoma City at 8am, St. Louis at 3pm, Indianapolis at 6pm, and Columbus at 9pm, ending in NYC at 5am.

And the speed limit?

This is actually the major concern. A lot of the answers here hand-wave away LEOs, but I can tell you firsthand that a lot of small towns in the midwest rely on speed trap income (even though it’s technically illegal).

And if a cop sees you going by at 90+ MPH, you WILL get a ticket… or three. More importantly, getting a ticket can delay you by easily half an hour, which could cost you $1,000,000. So basically the most expensive ticket ever issued.

Well, I thought of driving one of these:

But I really don’t want to get a felony charge for unlawfully driving an emergency vehicle. Again, that will certainly make you miss your arrival time. Ditto for radar jammers, which are strictly illegal.

So instead, I’ll stick to my BMW and the old trustworthy highway rules:

1. Always use a radar detector where legal (any state except VA). Always use Waze (and, if possible, borrow a friend’s phone to run Radarbot as well)
2. Follow another fast car, where possible.
3. When alone on the road, slow and steady wins the race. A lot of officers will let anything under 75 slide for highway, but most police will make it a point to stop you if you’re going 80+, and 90+ will definitely get you a ticket if they see it.
   
   This is why there’s no point going for a sports car; you won’t be driving fast enough for it to matter anyways.
4. Be careful driving by small towns, or when the speed limit suddenly drops for no apparent reason. As I said, they’re often traps designed to take your money.

Picture Source Wikipedia

Thanks for Reading