In this excerpt from his new book Drive!, Lawrence Goldstone recounts one of the first coast-to-coast road trips. In 1903, Packard investor Henry Joy hired test driver E.T. "Tom" Fetch to drive a 4.5-horsepower Model F across the country to prove American-made cars could "negotiate the all but impassible mountain and desert roads and trails of the Far West." It took 63 days.

The Packard set out from San Francisco on June 20, 1903. The Model F that E.T. "Tom" Fetch drove had been modified only slightly—the fenders had been removed, and it had been fitted with extra gasoline tanks and an additional low gear for negotiating mountains. In addition to the canvas—to roll out and lay under the wheels to allow the car to traverse the most inhospitable tracts of soft sand—Fetch took along a pick and shovel and log chains to get the car through ruts.