Angeles Crest Highway is one of the world’s greatest roads for several reasons, one of which is the way large sections of it have been built. Rather than paving on top of the undulating peaks that flow up the mountain, the prison laborers who built ACH blasted through them. They didn’t create tunnels per se (though there is a big one about 40 miles up), but instead dozens of little canyons. On one side is a rock wall perhaps 20 feet high. On the other, a 40-foot sheer cliff face. Normally, the 1930s-era construction choices would be the last thing you’d notice while piloting a fast car up The Crest, as it’s known. But in the 2021 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster, with its bombastic, Aston-tuned, twin-turbo 4.0-liter AMG V-8, all you can pay attention to is the sound of drum-sequenced thunder ricocheting off the mini-canyon walls. Color me enchanted.
Yes, I need to resort to percussion terminology—the rudiments—to even attempt to describe what it’s like. Sometimes you get a flam, two strikes to the snare drum at almost the exact same time, the right and left pairs of pipes throat-clearing nearly in unison. Other times there’s a definite paradiddle, a left, right, left, left. Do we have a double-ratamacue in there? Yes, and possibly even a triple. For the full story, check out this article from Motor Trend.
