· There are agencies that rent out classic 1950s cars, but they are not cheap. Dream Car Rentals, based in Las Vegas, will rent you a 1959 Cadillac Convertible for $300 a day - and that's without insurance. Rent-A-Vette, also in Las Vegas, also offer classic cars. You can hire a replica 1950 two-seat Porsche Speedster for $69 a day. Again, that is without insurance. You might be better off buying a car; there are plenty of websites offering classic cars for sale. And shipping cars home isn't as expensive as you might think. You might be able to transport a car from the East Coast for around $1,000, so you can get your kicks on the A416. A word of warning, though: driving Route 66 will be a labour of love. The last section closed in 1984 and opinions differ as to which was the genuine route. Souvenir hunters don't make the journey any easier by stealing the signs. But if you find the right car, and you can follow the route, it will be a blast - especially the section through the Mojave Desert.
Andrew Vincent

· 1950s cars are rare and virtually impossible to hire. The cost of repatriating the car after your coast-to-coast journey would be very high, too. If you can cope with two wheels, it's easier to hire a Harley. The Route 66 journey isn't actually much fun: if you really want to drive several thousand miles with a rock 'n' roll theme, a better bet is listed in Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" - from Norfolk, Virginia, through to California.

Driving across America is not for the faint-hearted - it can be extremely tedious across some states, with little scenic or cultural reward. You might consider instead the Pacific Coast Highway, which has wonderful scenery and cities, plus optional inland diversions such as Yosemite, Palm Springs, the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas. My wife and I drove from Washington, D.C. to New York, on to Niagara Falls and back to Washington via Pittsburgh this summer on our honeymoon. That was a lot of driving in two weeks, but we chose to spend a few days in each city. Coast to coast is an achievement, but not much of a holiday.
Phil Sayer