Cross-state trip will mark centennial

Ah. This is the way traveling should be — a five-day, leisurely, back-road trip from Spokane to Seattle in an antique car.

The AAA Centennial Reliability Run next week will be a fun (if possibly a little wet) vacation for owners of pre-1916 automobiles and a great way for the club to mark its 100th anniversary.

The races it commemorates were endurance tests designed mainly by car manufacturers and auto clubs to demonstrate what the vehicles could do over rutted, hazard-ridden roads.

Twenty one- and two-cylinder cars will make next week’s back roads trek from Spokane to Seattle.

It’s hard to picture Don Poffenroth’s meticulously restored, shiny, brass-covered 1906 Buick “F” tackling the kinds of roads it would have driven in its infancy. She’s a beaut, but a far cry from a Jeep.

“In those days, a big trip was going three miles into the country for a picnic,” he said.

The Buick has gray tube tires, which Poffenroth said would have been prone to flats in the car’s early days — probably the biggest problem encountered by early motorists.

But with today’s paved roads, Poffenroth doesn’t envision any troubles.

“The only thing I’m worried about on this trip is other drivers in modern cars,” he said.

Those other drivers can get a bit impatient when you’re only going 25-30 mph.

The Buick “F” could probably hit 50 mph, but with its wimpy brakes and lack of seat belts, those sorts of speeds aren’t a good idea, Poffenroth said.

Poffenroth is only the fourth owner of the car, which he bought four years ago from a man in California. Any parts have to be custom made, just as the cars were 100 years ago, before Henry Ford mobilized his assembly lines.

The AAA Centennial Reliability Run is a re-creation of the spectacle that automakers used to hawk their cars in the early days of automobiles, Poffenroth said.

“Buick did most of their advertising by racing their cars,” he explained.