2007 Germany Tour

   Story and Photo's by Garey Cooper ( Orange Coast Region )  

It all started at the Porsche Club of America, Orange Coast  Region's Christmas Party in December 2006. There was a silent  auction (no mimes were harmed) and one of the items was the  Autobahn Adventures tour of Germany for 2007....hmmm, what  driver didn't ever dream of driving the Autobahn in a Porsche?  Hey, I thought; let's take a chance. How far would you go to  drive a car on a highway? Of course it's a nice highway but it's  a  highway nonetheless. All right, it is the AUTOBAHN, famed in  story and legend and it is true, there are times and areas where  there is NO SPEED LIMIT. 

Somewhere across the sea…Fast forward to September 2007  and we are on a jet to Germany, that would be Stuttgart (or  Lourdes to the faithful), home of the flat six and the driving  passion that is Porsche. In Stuttgart you not only have Porsche but Mercedes Benz, talk about a town with pedigree. With some American pride I might call it the   "Detroit of Europe", but for the fact that in the tides of business it seems that Detroit is in thrall to Stuttgart.

Our first stop was at the Kempinski Hotel Neu-Isenburg in  Frankfurt. Here we were greeted by Mark and Tina  Trewartha of  Autobahn Adventures, who would be our  hosts for the  trip.  And  in the most exciting preamble, out  in  the parking lot  there  was a shiny row of Porsches.  Imagine a kid of 12  walking into a  candy shop and being  told, "take one, any  one"  and, well, you  get the idea.  Escorted by Mark and Tina  we each had to choose  our new  911 for the next 10 days.  Just  like Henry Ford said,  "take  any color you want so long  as it's black." In fact, they  were all black.  We selected a Carrera 4S that was, you  guessed  it, black! Our Porsche was  outfitted with all the  options you  could want including a navigation system.  Programmed in  English it became our  "Passport tout" to  every nook and   cranny  of Germany, and  Switzerland that  we visited.

Ventura Highway…The Autobahn system is unique. It was the inspiration for the US Interstate system and  was  a national highway system that in early conception was meant to mobilize troops to one frontier or  another. Only the Romans were better road builders; they got it and so did the Germans in the first half of the  twentieth century. Smoother, better marked, and better engineered. Their  allure to the USA-based driver is  the open areas that have virtually no speed limits. And I mean NO SPEED  LIMITS. We'll give you a moment to  let this sink in, yup; put the pedal to the metal and go till she won't go no  more. There is a distinctive sign  that  signals it's time to let the petroleum byproducts loose and fly and that's  what people do. You'll see  station wagons at 250+ KPH with kids in the back coloring. At the same time you  might think you're flying  when suddenly in your rear view mirror a Renault wants by you! My advice is to move  right on over and let  them by. They know the roads and you don't; don't let your "macho" get too loose here.  At high speeds,  really  high speeds, things are different. Be aware and take care is my best advice; increment  up to the  speeds  and be respectful of local knowledge. A fender bender at 250 KPH has a whole new meaning.  By the  way I was just kidding about the Renault, none of them passed me!

                                                                                                                                                                           The Nurburgring or Green Hell…The Dorint Novotel Am   Nurburgring   (did I forget to mention that ALL our hotels  were five star?)  was our next stop. And nearer to "car guy"  heaven you can't  get. The hotel rooms open right upon the  "new ring" and I  awoke to the sounds of cars squealing  their  tires right under  our balcony. Just in the distance one  could see the fabled  North Ring; built in the 20's and the  playground of Nuvolari, Rosemyer, Schumacher, Stewart,  Clark, etc., etc. The best  part of the whole trip was the  chance to put a toe into these  very same waters!  AUTOBAHN ADVENTURES had set us up for one afternoon  at the Nurburgring, not in our rental cars (they do have  insurance rules in Germany) but in modified BMW's rented  from a local race-car-hire company. I had opted to select the  BMW 1.8 liter race-prepared car for the day. There were  other bigger cars available, but this one had the five-point harness, was stripped and road race prepared.   She was all momentum, maybe 180 horses tops, but what a flying shingle.  We got her just over 150 KPH on   the straight pulling all the way before shutting down, but a more responsive car you wouldn't find.

Now some words about driving on the Nurburgring on  track days…everyone runs! That is EVERYONE. You  will  see minivans filled with families, a little delivery truck  with  about a 25 horsepower motor and 1" wide  tires and a full  blown modified GT3 driven to the absolute limit, and all on  the same lap!  Everyone that shows up with a driver's  license and the track fee can go out, which is pretty much  what  everyone does. There are motorcycles roaring  around  the place with the leather clad riders leaned over  so  far  you wonder how they stay on; sometimes they  don't. Now I expect what you would like to hear is that  everybody gets along and respects each other and  accidents are rare, but that in fact would be untrue. Sadly  accidents are not rare and most days the track is shut  down and running cars are stopped as some unfortunate is  taken off to the hospital.   

The Nurburgring is also long, very difficult to remember and  is filled with blind turns. If you imagine a mountain road  twisting and turning with dips and depressions, you will have the correct picture. Probably the most photographed  turn is the "Carousel". This is an almost, but not quite, 360°  banked bowl that really fast cars dip down into, and after  traveling around the bowl are flung out with increased  momentum like the marble in a roulette wheel. Incredibly all  of the turns have names (whoever had the time to go  through there and name all of these I don't know). Some of  them are self descriptive like: flug platz....others obscure  and  known only by the locals. But in my time on the track it  certainly earned its reputation and nickname. You do have  to drive with one eye in the rear view mirror as there are  incredibly quick cars mixed in with the proletariat. I shared my driving with Steve, a fellow traveler and he and I agreed to act as spotters for one another, which worked out well.

After our day on the track, we retreated to the bar at the hotel. This bar had autographs filling every square  inch and all of the patrons were encouraged to add their names to those who had gone before. So the walls  are covered with signatures of the famous, near-famous, and infamous, as well as yours truly. After some  excellent German beer we were all bragging about how fast we went and I began to make up names for  corners  and asking people how the others had driven them: "say, Keith how fast did you take Schnigglefritz ?  Keith Verlaque of San Diego is a fellow PCA member and a driver of note down that way and he gave me a  blank stare and said: "where's that corner?" "Oh," I replied, "two kilometers past Bunzenbreaken." Keith  didn't  recall them so I just said, "I just go flat out and hope for the best!"

But Wait, There's More… You can't stay too long at the  Nurburgring in my book, but some people like Mrs. Cooper  disagree so we had to leave the next day and generally  continued heading south. Each evening the Trewartha’s had  scheduled stops at beautiful hotels with great gourmet dinners.  Days were mostly on our own exploring local roads, or in our  case, golf courses. Mrs. Cooper usually travels with her  suitcase which we in the family have named the "widow  maker".  Though she stands just an eyelash over five feet, her  suitcase is a little taller than she is. As far as weight is  concerned, let's just say I've seen experienced bellmen, and  cab  drivers turn and run upon first sighting our luggage. So  my wife's first challenge was packing enough to wear with a  golf  bag. I am sure some physics laws were violated along the  line but she did manage to accomplish her packing mission. And  although my right arm is now longer than my left arm and  I  can tie my shoes without bending over, we  managed to drag, haul, and cajole all of that gear into our Black Carerra from stop to stop. There were a  couple of problems like when I bought a pack of gum and had to take it out of the wrapper to fit it into the car,  but most of the time we were fine.

                                                                                                                                                                               In Switzerland…Part of the wonderful itinerary planned by Mark  and Tina was the Alpine region of Switzerland around Lake  Lucerne. To say this area is beautiful is almost an injustice, it  truly is beyond that. The lake itself is spectacular enough but  the  backdrop over the lakes of those high mountains comes  right  out  of central casting for everything you think should be  right  about Switzerland. This was one of the occasions where  we had  a planned daytime outing. We were scheduled to go up  the  Alpine passes and cross over one to come back down into  Lucerne. Armed with our navigation system, walkie-talkies, and  maps, our brave little group took off and believe it or not got  lost! How with all of that technology did we manage this one  might ask? It seems that there had been some recent road  construction in the area and some of the maps had not been  updated. The result was near hilarity as one by one, the cars were separated and slowly drifted out of radio  range, like an episode of Lost (without the commercials). I ended up with one other car, that of our tour leader  himself: Mark, who I figured had at least an inkling of where we were headed. So, he and I craftily got  ourselves re-routed and finally, near the mountain top, met up with the rest of our party who had just beaten  us there! We then carried on over the pass and the views were breathtaking. It is hard to describe looking  out  over the mountain flank with the road one long ribbon of asphalt winding down into the valley with  beautiful small towns and ultimately the city of Lucerne lying far below.

While in Lucerne Mrs. Cooper and I had our other "navigation incident". We were looking for the Lucerne golf club and had duly programmed the address into our system. It got us right to the smallest road you ever saw and said: "take the road." So, take the road we did which went straight up the hill and grew ever narrower the further we got. Ultimately we began to lose confidence as I realized the only way back down was to....back down! When we finally saw people pushing golf carts past us giving quizzical looks as we drove up to a tee box, we understood that some mistakes had been made. I used the tee box to get the car pointed down the hill again, shouted “fore!” and we trundled back down the hill, past dazed looking golfers where we realized the entrance road was only about one quarter inch wider than the golf path and about two feet past it. In spite of it all we still were allowed to play there, although I  don't believe they appreciated my California yodel on the elevated tees: "yodel-lay-he-a, golf ball on the way!"

And Now Back to Reality…Ultimately all good things must end and so our Autobahn Adventure ended as well.  After a wonderful 10 days we pointed our Porsche back towards Frankfurt where we had to return the car;  this really hurt. Would I go again? You bet. In a heartbeat. If you are a Porsche/Car enthusiast you will  definitely  not  be disappointed as my narrative here only touches upon all of the activities and sights we saw !  If you want to know anymore about these fantastic adventures please don’t hesitate to contact Mark and Tina.