It started with a one-word e-mail: "Gumball." Like the better-known The Cannonball Run, the 1976 flick The Gumball Rally was about a cross-country race from Manhattan to the Pacific Ocean. The competition is triggered by phone calls and telegrams relaying that one word. The e-mail was sent by my friend Dan Watkins, who recently acquired the (yes, the) Mantide, Stile Bertone's styling exercise built for last spring's Shanghai auto show. Based on the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 chassis and 638-hp V-8 powertrain, it has a custom-made carbon-fiber body and interior.

Dan was going to show the Mantide at Pebble Beach, and he wanted to take his McLaren F1 there, too, along with two Ferraris - a 612 Scaglietti and a brand-new Scuderia Spider 16M with a $23,000 pearlescent white paint job. And rather than ship them, he proposed that we drive them. "It will be just like the Gumball Rally," he said, "only without the car wrecks and the police helicopters. Hopefully."

The road trip of a lifetime - driving across the country in more than $5 million worth of exotic cars - was taking shape. To complete the team, we recruited friends Mark Nolan, who, like Dan, is a Brit, and Glenn Farrell, who lives in Maine. With just three weeks left before departure, planning shifted into high gear. We mapped routes and stockpiled supplies: UHF radios, Valentine One radar detectors, a digital trunking radio scanner, AAA memberships, plenty of cash for bail, and a roll of duct tape.

Read the adventure here