There’s something magical about the great American road trip. Just point your hood in a direction, mash the pedal, and watch the world go by. Next week, I get to do just that, as I leave the frigid Midwest for warm and sunny Los Angeles to hop into the Autopian’s weird Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. Then I’ll drive east, bound for Austin, Texas, to take part in a Texas-edition 24 Hours of Lemons road rally. My trip will drop me off right back at home near Chicago, roughly 3,400 miles after I left. Along the way, I want to meet you!
Back in the spring of this year, David Tracy, Jason Torchinsky, and Matt Hardigree came up with one of their typically mad ideas. They decided to buy a cheap version of Nissan’s abysmal failure of a convertible crossover, the Murano CrossCabriolet, and partnered up with our friends at XPEL to apply paint protection film to exactly half of it. Since then, the 10-year-old, over 100,000-mile Autopian CrossCab has been through a lot of crap. Jason attempted to “cop slide” across its hood. I’m sure more than one person keyed it, and oh yeah, we also jacked it up and mounted Ford Mustang Tri-Bar wheels on it. We even tossed some shopping carts at the poor thing just for good measure.
I will be the one taking the CrossCab on its greatest journey yet. After departing LA with our excellent photographer, Griffin, we’ll take the CrossCab off-roading near Flagstaff, Arizona then beat it down to Texas to take part in the Lemons Lone Star/No-Start Rally. Then I’ll drop Griffin off in Houston and take the CrossCab home to my lair, where it’ll get to experience a Midwest winter.
The drive will take an entire week and see us traverse nearly 3,400 miles. Jason and I are calling it the “CrossCab CrossCountry CabCross CountryCab,” and I want to meet you along the way!
Anything Is Possible
Truth be told, I have no idea what to expect here. Since I don’t live anywhere near our California boys, I have never seen the CrossCab in person. I have no idea what it currently looks like, no idea how it drives, and no idea what’s even wrong with it. The only thing that I’ve been told is that the terribly complex roof mechanism has been getting jammed. Apparently, most lately, the car’s been making a crying beeping sound whenever the roof tries to close. Jason warns me that the roof has “a finite number of closes left in it.”
This is bad, because the part that I’m most excited about is driving the CrossCab with the roof down. I will absolutely let the intrusive thoughts win and drop the top. But will it come back up? I have no idea. What’s worse is that, while there is a manual closure procedure, you cannot fully close the roof manually. Apparently, Nissan just didn’t think that far.
My experience with Nissans is also a bit silly. You might remember when I buried a poor rental Rogue in some muck in the dark of night in Florida. There was another time when my wife bought a 2004 Nissan Maxima for only $300, and the darn car tried to kill me with its lack of lug nuts, catastrophic wheel bearings, and a transmission that engaged like a sledgehammer.
On the other hand, I’ve become a Nissan apologist. When I’m not getting rentals stuck, I appreciate that Nissans are cheap, well-featured transportation.
Where will the CrossCab fall? Will I love it? Will I hate it? I have no idea, but I cannot wait to find out! Seriously, I’m so excited that I’ve been losing sleep over it.
The Route
The screenshot above is what my route will look like, roughly.
On Monday, December 1, I will fly on a cushy Frontier Airlines flight to Los Angeles, where I will meet up with Griffin and see the CrossCabriolet for the first time in my life. Then, we will hit the road for Flagstaff, Arizona.
On Tuesday, Griffin and I will be driving around Flagstaff, gathering content with the CrossCab. We’ll be taking some off-road trails and will be up to other antics. I think we should have some time here to meet up with some readers. Maybe you can go wheeling with us! Here’s what some of the off-roading looked like the last time I was in Flagstaff:
On Wednesday, we’ll depart Flagstaff and drive roughly 10 hours or so to Lubbock, Texas, where we’ll stop for the night.
On Thursday, we’ll head to San Marcos, Texas. This day’s drive is shorter, and I think it’ll be a great time to meet with Autopian readers before the start of the Lemons Rally. There is a Walmart in San Marcos at 1015 TX-80, San Marcos, TX, 78666. I think a 6 p.m. meetup should be more than doable. Since we’re more than a week out, I’ll have further details when the time gets closer. However, if you’re in Texas and you want to meet us, I think Thursday will be a good bet.
The Rally
From Friday to Sunday, Griffin and I will be running in the Lemons Lone Star/No-Start Rally. If you don’t know what a Lemons Rally is, I’ll explain. This isn’t one of the famous 24 Hours of Lemons races, but a road trip rally with wacky cars. There are start points, checkpoints, challenges, and an entire scoring system. It’s all for fun and, provided you can afford the $500 entry fee, pretty accessible. You can bring any road-legal vehicle, even a rental, an Uber, or a taxi if you’re crazy enough.
Here’s what the scoring sheet looks like:
I’m not sure if there will be any opportunities to meet Autopian readers during the rally, but here’s what the schedule looks like:
DAY 1
Friday, 5 December: Austin TX to Laredo TX
MANDATORY Pre-Rally Registration: 7 am @ Harris Hill Raceway, 2840 Harris Hill Road, San Marcos TX
Optional Meetup: TBA
Optional Lodging: Laredo Hotel, 4820 San Bernardo Ave., Laredo ILDAY 2
Saturday, 6 December: Laredo TX to Corpus Christi TX
Optional Meetup: TBA
Optional Lodging: Wyndham Corpus Christi North – South Padre Island, 15202 Windward Dr, Corpus Christi TXDAY 3
Sunday, 7 Dec: Corpus Christi TX to Austin TX
Rally Finish: 6 pm @ Harris Hill Raceway, 2840 Harris Hill Road, San Marcos TX
After the rally finishes on Sunday, I’ll drop Griffin off in Houston, Texas, and then solo drive the CrossCab back to Illinois.
Let’s Meet Up And Have Fun!
Of course, this is a great opportunity to see parts of America I’ve never been to before. If you have any recommendations for museums, restaurants, historical places, or anything like that along our route, I want to hear them – send me an email at mercedes@theautopian.com. You can also drop me a line at that address if you’d like to meet Griffin and I along the way.
All of this is so exciting for me. I’ve always wanted to participate in a Lemons event, and I’ve long wanted to drive a CrossCabriolet. Now, I’ll get to do both at the same time! It’s also been a very long time since I’ve gotten to drive a road trip this long, and I’m stoked about that, too. Hopefully, the roof lasts, and I don’t end up having to drive in winter with a top that’s stuck down.
Top graphic images: Google Maps; David Tracy; Mercedes Streeter; Griffin Riley
I can’t wait to read your account, especially of taking part in the Lemons race!
Don’t miss the Stature on the Corner and the Flatbed Ford in Winslow AZ…
make a right after Albuquerque and hit Roswell, NM. Aliens ain’t seen nothing like the CrossCab!
The CrossCab CrossCountry CrabCross CrossCross might actually scare them away forever.
It might be worth checking out the Route 66 Museum in Kingman, AZ and getting a picture of the car driving under the Route 66 arch.
For the love of GOD woman, do not ever retract the vert top. Between your luck and its mechanically-deficient state, it’s bound to result in misery.
You spell it misery, Autopian writers call it content.
Just a word of advice, if you’re dropping Griffin off at the airport make sure it is the right one they have 2.
Both of which have construction going on.
Restaurant recommendations for San Marcos:
The Root Cellar – sandwiches, burgers in a cellar of one of the older buildings.
Grinns – decent variety of typical American plates, burgers, and tacos
Black’s BBQ – I’ve only been to the original in Lockhart, but the Black Family is BBQ royalty in Texas.
I’m partial to the Landry Cajun BBQ Restaurants
The one in New Braunfels is fantastic. I’ll drive there from Houston to pick up barbecue and a case of green apple wine from Winery on the Gruene.
Both of those are in the email I should probably finish writing and send.
That will be a ton of fun! I’m looking forward to reading about it.
Excited for you! I’m sure it’ll be tons of fun, I hope the car doesn’t give you any roof trouble, but just enough elsewhere for some good content of course.
Flagstaff is lovely – as shown by that beautiful summer-time photo you included. However, it’s at 8,000 feet and at this time of year you are likely to find below freezing temps and snow on the ground. You might want to travel by way of Tucson instead. From what I can tell there’s no roof at all on that car (looks like it was sawsalled off?)
am I just missing the joke because it’s the internet or do you really not know of this nissan?
there is physically a roof. though how functional it is varies lol
I know nothing about it. I saw it at the Galpin car show, but never got closer than about 15 feet away as there were way more interesting cars to see and I had a 2 year old that wasn’t going to tolerate being there all day. Plus it was up on ramps so you couldn’t see the roof. From 15 feet away it looked like someone had sawsalled off the roof. There’s no way an OEM would make something that half-assed. Apparently you’re telling me it did roll of the Nissan line that way.
Even if it does have a roof, off roading that thing in Flagstaff this time of year seems unwise. Depending which logging road you take, the ruts can be three feet deep – and that was in the summer. Adding snow to the mix sounds worse. Living not too far from there, one generally goes to the deserts in the winter and the mountains in the summer for off road activities.
It’s a convertible! Though, it does look like the roof was chopped off, so I don’t blame you one bit. Our plan calls for a real off-road rig to be there with us as a recovery vehicle. We should be fine. If not, we’ll have a dumb story to tell and a safe place to be, anyway!
“We should be fine.” We’ll check back in with you on that…
Nissan pretty much literally did chop off the roof of a Murano and sell it as a kind of convertible.
there’s articles here that go into detail on how the model came to be, it’s crazy.
Unfortunately, I will be in Cancun next week, or I would drive up to Flagstaff to meet you and swap war stories about the Scion iQ! We could also discuss the merits of the CrossCab vs. the PT Cruiser convertible I owned and loved! 🙂
See the USA in a Cross Cabri-o-let!
Also for anyone interested, and if you have prime there’s a decent documentary on the lemons race…
https://www.amazon.com/Hoopties-Chris-Abbot/dp/B0BXKZWBT6
The Lemons team do a video wrap-up of each race on Youtube (usually a month or so after the race?): https://www.youtube.com/@24hoursoflemons
I find them hilarious to watch, despite being on the wrong side of the world to ever see a race in person.
Have a safe trip and best of luck in the Lemons race! I see you’re going through Arkansas. The semi/car ratio there is unreal…. You’ll be outnumbered!
Also you may, by chance, get to drop off the interstate there and experience the unique form of road terror that is the Arkansas suicide lanes to the service roads! You exit the interstate at highway speeds (70 ish I presume) and cut directly across the oncoming lane of traffic heading right for you with your only protection being the good will and driving skill of the oncoming driver . You hope they know what their yield sign means as they barrel straight at you for a head-on collision! Especially exiting at night!
Have fun!
Arkansas keeps taxes down by not being too persnickety about infrastructure.
West Memphis has the highest truck traffic in the country, possibly the largest truck stops.
Meanwhile the city govt is trying to ban trucks.
There is a railroad service road in the area that was the smoothest gravel road I’ve ever seen.
We made 60 mph in a pickup without much drama.
So you’ll be in Houston around 10PM or so? I’m old and can’t stay out that late anymore!!!
Also, about an hour north of Flagstaff there’s bit of a hole in the ground, something of a ditch really, that the aboriginal peoples dug out of the desert shortly after the invention of the teaspoon. They don’t advertise this past but they still sell souvenir teaspoons in the gift shop as a subtle hint to its history. If you’ve never seen it before it’s worth the stop. I’m sure you’ve seen photos or videos of it before but until you see it with your own eyes you have no idea how big it really is. However big you’re thinking, it’s 10x bigger.
There is also a big hole in the ground south of Flagstaff, which was made by space aliens throwing a medium-sized rock at us.
The amazing thing is how close it came to the visitor’s center!
I’ve been there too! Right after I spent some time standing on a corner in Winslow AZ.
There are even parts of a crashed plane there!
Awesome scenery all over the place there, Joshua Tree NP is great if you’ve got the time to at least take a quick look. If you’re not doing the more southern route, alas, you’ll miss the Pima Air & Space Museum and the Saguaro NP (both Tuscon area).
Sounds like fun!
-A little jealous, as I look out my window and see the season’s first accumulating snowfall come down.
I hope you make it back to the Chicago suburbs safely.
For the benefit of anyone who may have noticed that the items on the rally scoresheet listed under PERFORMANCE are listed again word-for-word under HOW BUTT-TURRIBLE IS IT, the original version had this under the latter heading instead:
This got messed up years ago when the Lemons website was redesigned. I’ve been pointing this out to Lemons HQ ever since but it long ago descended into an annual ritual in which I draw their attention to it and they thank me and do nothing. I think everyone involved somehow finds this tradition comforting. I mean, I do.
Ah, that makes sense, because otherwise the CrossCab looked like it was going to rack up some sizeable minus points for being a recent Japanese car, but these give it a chance to win the points it deserves; for being utterly weird and quite ugly.
I assume it will get even more points when the roof inevitably fails in a half up/half down position but our brave Autopians carry on regardless..
Oh, I’m here for this. Eagerly awaiting future articles.
I almost did a spit-take. This is going to be good.
I had hoped to take advantage of this by entering my Czechoslovakian ’72 Velorex 435 in the Cascades of Failure Lemons Rally a few months ago but it suffered two independent failures after I had driven it only as far as Seattle to Tacoma in order to reach the starting line. The first failure was fixable by soldering a wire back into place on one of its two sets of contact points but the other meant finding a replacement brush for its combination starter/generator (which eventually meant getting a set of brushes from a guy in the Czech Republic).
I ended up retrieving my trailer, hauling the car home, then running the rally in my two-stroke ’67 SAAB 96. It was still fun but it meant no sweet, sweet Warsaw Pact points for me.
Well, if you want to take a detour on your way back through IL, there’s a Chevy museum in Decatur that might be open still, I also know that the Monticello Railway Museum should still have weekends left in their schedule. They’re even right next to Horizon Hobby’s RC plane test airfield.
I would have recommended heading to Peoria and Wheels o’ Time, but they’re closed ’till spring. The Riverfront Museum has a small Duryea exhibit with the car in their collection, and they’re right next door to the Caterpillar Visitors Center, so there’s that I guess.
Please, please, PLEASE make shirts with this.
I would have thought Flagstaff to Lubbock was way more than 10 hours, but yeah, 9 hours 42 minutes when I looked up
As a former touring musician, you’re not the first to underestimate how much nothing is spread out in that part of the country. “Sure, we can play a gig in Albuquerque one night and make it to Wichita the next night.” 12 hours of driving that day and two sets that night.
Moved from Houston to Portland this year so made that drive across twice. I pushed from Houston to Albuquerque in one day the first time… that was a long haul.
Eagerly awaiting videos of Ms. Mercedes stuck in traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway in a snowstorm with the top stuck in the down position.
My HOA would probably kill me if I parked the CrossCab here with a tarp over the interior because the roof can’t close. LOL
Flying helmet, circa 1943 and a big ushanka, a number of silk scarves. Thin silk vest, thick silk vest, Icelandic roll neck sweater and a Drysabone stockman coat does the top half, the lower parts are much the same, but without the ushanka and helmet, long johns rather than vests, and Voyager trousers. The fun bit is when arriving at a nice warm place!
You forgot goggles
The thing has a windscreen I think? The complications of keeping goggles clear whilst being dressed as the Michelin man, I forgot the gloves too.
I’m picturing it stuck halfway, with snow crusted on it, and Mercedes and Griffin dressed like polar explorers.
Actually, maybe ‘polar explorers’ would make a good theme? That or ‘ski bums’. Whichever, just make sure you pick a theme which involves wearing as much cold-weather gear as possible.
It’s a shame y’all aren’t routing through Phoenix, and then Tucson. I think you’d get a real kick out of seeing the Pima Air and Space museum and the Titan Missile Museum.
I hadn’t thought of this, but yeah, those are right up Mercedes’ alley.
It is the right time of year to do the Pima as in the summer the heat is unbearable. Winter is perfect for it. But it’s a solid day to see most everything, well worth it though.
When heading south from Phoenix there is also the Pinal airplane storage area just off to the west side where you can get sort of close-ish to some planes before security eventually chases you off, the half disassembled 747 is fun to look at on the way in and the fleet of American Airlines planes (hundreds? all lined up) is amazing. Obviously what’s there changes regularly but definitely some sights and liveries not to be seen elsewhere in the U.S. An hour is perfect for slowly driving by everything from outside the fenceline.
I live one city north of San Marcos (Kyle) so I just might have to come see this legendary CrossCab in the flesh!
I’ve been in that town before attempting to set a world record 😉
Ahh yes the Gathering Of The Kyles I assume!
There can be only one!