when former c/d digital media manager and now general motors employee luke sellenraad asked to be a guest on window shop, we ignored him. unfazed, he started sending direct messages to us on various social-media platforms. to get him off our back, we conceded but told him he had to pick the challenge because we're very busy and also a little lazy. sellenraad chose wisely, asking us to look for the perfect road-trip vehicle for less than $15,000. it's possible that the budget was miscommunicated to the crew, as some shoppers put up $20,000 cars and others presented vehicles costing half that. look, we could give you a bunch of excuses for the mistake, but we respect you too much to do that.
contributor john pearley huffman's dream drive involves running up the california coast on highway 1 in a 1978 mercedes-benz 450sl two-seater (r107 generation). the crew picks a few nits with pearley's uncharacteristically good choice, including the fact that this car falls outside this week's ambiguous budget.
sellenraad presents a rare and powerful bmw x5 4.8is that he'd like to take to the grand canyon and throughout the beautiful american west. the granddaddy of today's x5m, this car has some of us worried. the seller claims to have spent $26,000 on it in the last 50,000 miles. we doubt sellenraad will make it to utah.
after a year of not being able to travel to the continent where he left his heart, contributor jonathon ramsey sets his sights on a romantic jaunt from paris to the south of france, and he picks a 2004 mercedes-benz sl500 (r230 generation) to do it in. not everyone is smitten with his choice, although it is the least expensive of the bunch.
a golf-themed journey is on deputy testing director k.c. colwell's mind, and since he's bringing three others to complete his foursome, he selects a volkswagen eurovan mv. oddly, a couple of people don't see the appeal of taking a van on a road trip.
finally, host tony quiroga confesses that he's nearing the end of his rope and wants his drive to follow the wistful tracks of mad men's don draper across the country in a cadillac. after this episode, you may feel the same way.