Here’s to the motoring memories

I’ve just watched a marketing video by the Morgan Motor Company, the very traditional British marque that still builds its cars by hand in a facility in the Malvern Hills of England. A marketing video isn’t something that would normally stir the emotions enough to write an entire article, but this one is different. It features a Morgan owner by the name of Spencer Bentley, a Canadian who lives in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales in England.

Naturally the focus is his Morgan Plus Four, but the video goes way beyond just the car, as he explains the emotions of the drive, the way he makes memories that he can share with his children and one day, his grandchildren. He talks of how he sees new places, experiences all the sights, sounds and smells of driving past a river or through a forest and how driving can be much more than just, driving.

It got me thinking about all the memories and stories that cars give us in our lives. Many are nostalgic, looking back to road trips in our childhood, holidays with friends or it could be the car you drove from the hospital in after the birth of your first child. I’ll always remember the Land Rover Defender Heritage Edition that my first born went home in.

If you believe the movies, then memories always seem to be created in a classic car, but what about modern vehicles? You can create memories in any car, but what would make good options for those stories you want to tell further down the road?

For many it’s going to be a bakkie, packed to the canopy roof with stuff on your way to the coast for the summer holidays. Who doesn’t have a bakkie memory of one sort or another? I’ve driven bakkies all over the world, but one of my best memories is of jumping into a farmer’s Toyota Hilux after we had a puncture on a gravel road just outside of Loxton. It was the start of a few days of that famous Karoo hospitality.

If it’s epic off-road adventures that you want to put in the scrapbook, then the opportunities in SA and southern Africa are limitless. There are no shortage of vehicles to choose from either. The great rivalry between the Land Rover Defender and the Toyota LandCruiser will probably go on forever or you could go full luxury. Imagine wafting across Namibia in a Bentley Bentayga or travelling with the family to the beaches of Mozambique in a Mercedes-Benz GLS.

Then there are the cars that heighten the senses. Cruise along the Garden Route in a GT car like the Ferrari Roma, or drop the top and listen to the rumble of a Ford Mustang GT convertible on your way to a boutique hotel in the Knsyna Forest. It’s easy to see every journey as a memory, but it’s hard to beat driving through Franschoek Pass or along Chapman’s Peak Drive in a two-seater sports car.

You could combine the best of all worlds and seek out the best on and off-road experiences in a Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato or a Porsche 911 Dakar. Imagine one of those spontaneous moments when you can just jump in a 911 Dakar, drive to Atlantis in the Western Cape, play in the dunes and then drive home again. It is often the spontaneous trips that give us the best memories after all.

If you own or have access to a classic car, then any road trip can be elevated to a whole other level, but while the rare, luxurious or exotic enhance the romance of an adventure on the road, let’s be honest, any car will do. Who hasn’t enjoyed exploring somewhere new in a Volkswagen Polo rented from the airport, or driving to a special family gathering in a Hyundai or a Kia.

Whatever it is, the car is often a significant part of our memories. Whether it’s a spontaneous road trip, an annual holiday, a spectacular road overseas, or the drive to your first day in a new job, the car is as much a part of our life stories as our friends and families. I don’t know about you, but I feel a road trip coming on.