SamFromTX

Dark knight, great post and what an adventure. Happy for you.
Eduardo, always a wealth of Porsche info. Have you thought of writing a book about Porsche's history? There are so many out there but your style of writing and your pictures are unique.

dark knight

exactly, I will pay that fine as soon as they send me a souvenir picture of me in my car

Igooz

I don't want to hijack your thread, but that camera went in around 1998-1999 (I think, I got my ticket too...?)...and you only get caught on the rare times that there is no traffic...how was the breakfast buffet in Graf Zeppelin?...Ok...enough....great write up.

+1

dark knight

so a little more in travel tips for the lost americans, ATT has an intl plan for my iphone, at a dollar a minute! so once you get to Germany go to this store called saturn, buy a german obama phone for around 20 euro, then buy a sim car for 15 euro, I reloaded mine for a total of 25 euro and talked over an hour or maybe 2 each day for 7 days, the sim card has a pin that the phone asks for, don't lose it, dont buy a sim card that requires internet activation its too hard.
The hotel room Porsche gets you comes with breakfast, they will also get you additional nights at a special rate, in the morning you go to the mezzanine, give them your room number and have breakfast buffet, you dont tip usually. At a regular restaurant they include a 15% service fee, you kind of round up so if the bill is $23.10 you would say $24 if it was like $23.85 you might do $25

dark knight

eduardo, thanks so much for the type 64 info, I didnt know the second car was theres, now, its definitely worth a trip to the protyp museum and the miniature wunderland in hamburg.

So back to Stuttgart, so I walk down Koenigstrasse and eat dinner, its quiet, Germany is playing Brazil in the world cup semifinals, after the victory a number of people park in from of the train station block traffic and I can't sleep now, so I go out snap a few pics, the after about 45 minutes of this the polizei tells everyone to get moving and so they leave, in the morning I skip bkfst and head for Ingolstadt to watch them build Audis, Its raining again this keeps my speed down and I am beginning to develop a feel for the car---PDK-S Im not used to the car yet jet lagged unfamiliar country, rain, Im doing just enough to drive in auto, then steam comes from the front end,I pull over twice to check, Im not leaking anything, its just rain water and the hot radiator I believe, the anxiety about this makes me wonder if I should've just shipped the car, but it settles down, and Im noticing the PDK is a non issue, the cars ability to shift gears instantaneously is impressive and I am definitely a manual transmission guy, it also takes a bit for the carbon ceramics to bed in and work, you have limited braking ability at first, by the end of the day it was fine. the Audi museum was just ok, the factory tour was pretty good, man audi built some ugly cars in the 50s-70s, then a a few more hours of driven rain lets off a bit, Im heading for Wolfsburg Germany to Autostadt

<3mph

Brings back lots of great memories. Thanks for the write up. Hopefully the rain lets up and you get a chance to explore the car's limits a little more. How are the tires in the wet for you BTW? Enjoy your trip!!

CAlexio

So, if I am to understand correctly, this thread's sole purpose is to plant the seed that getting the front lift is a MUST.


nice try anyway throwing us off with all that talk ab the museum, price of train tickets, PDK-s feel, and all the other emotional stuff

Z356

I am going there myself this Fall...hopefully!

The really cool Audis (the R8's of course) are hand-build at Neckarsulm. You should have gone there instead! (photo 1)

I actually love the look of these 50's Audi's! But by the time the 70's came around, they lost their 'mojo'! But then...who didn't?

By the way, dark knight, in these forums they say that a thread is worthless without pictures. And they are correct. People need to see these old Audi's at the museum to know what you are talking about. Please start using that camera of yours more often so as to give us something to look at with each of your travel commentaries! Danke!

Thank you, Sam. A book? I thought about it & then I realized they already took my envisioned title for it: 'One Hundred Porsches and Me'!

Saludos,
Eduardo
Carmel

.

dark knight

eduardo, thanks so much for adding the audi pictures, I took really few there. Actually I brought 3 cameras and should've taken more pictures, (I like taking pictures) but with the rain and excitement I took too few. Eduardo, have you been to Miniature Wunderland in Hamburg? its not far from the protyp museum and its a must see. In retrospect the R8 plant might have been a better choice, perhaps next time, a picture of the night befores celebrations in Stuttgart is below. So Then I head to Autosatdt which is kind of a giant automotive themed park, it was about 170 miles to Audi and 320 miles to Wolfsburg, Im getting more used to the car at that time, it draws a crowd everywhere. I have the larger fuel tank option, when I refuel, it says I have over 300 miles of range, I get to Wolfsburg, the rain subsided, I stayed at the Ritz Carlton it is part of Autostadt, I usually only like to spend money on things with 4 wheels, thing that shoot pictures or bullets, and model/toy cars so this was a big deal to me, I called them and they said they had a good garage, but it was valet only, however the valet let me park my car, you have to drive a textured landscaped road to get to the Ritz, I used the lift on it and to get into the garage, even with the lift I heard the spoiler scrape slightly. Ive noticed on this day smoke upon start up Ive also noticed that the rear spoiler bloacka bit of your view, as your watching for people passing on the autobahn, at home you are more likely to have it interfere with you watching for the cops. Im sorry my writing style is terrible, Im writing from home, this trip was just last week, the car pic is at the gas station with nose lifted

green

What a cool write up! Loving the details. Please keep it coming!

ECS Tuning

Yes please. Great looking car Dark Knight and congratulations

Zulu Alpha

How about "50 Shades of Porsche" Eduardo, since you are so aptly known as the "PTS man"

Zulu Alpha

Many salutes Dark Knight!

dark knight

so to back track slightly, when I ate lunch at Porsche in the guest casino, met a couple of swedish guys, I think they learned a lot as explained to them about box cars, bubble cars, donks and what a hoe phone was back to Autostadt, its in Wolfsburg the town which VW is in, its next to their plant and its like a giant outdoor park with a few car displays representing the many marques owned by VW, the park is perfect, if you watch star trek movies its like the futuristic starfleet academy grounds, they have a Porsche pavilion too, but to take the star trek analogy further being a porsche guy on these grounds, I feel like a klingon in starfleet. The Porsche pavllion feature 3 cars and a bunch of simple model cars represents the history of Porsche, I've heard it described as kind of mausoleum like and I have to agree, its not very exciting, so I get to the Ritz its so nice, I almost felt like I didnt need to put toilet paper on the seat. As I arrived near 7 most of the stores were closed, wen I took a short walk to the town, they have giant outlet mall there. The main street is named Porschestrasse, VW has a real museum there, but i didnt see it, I went to sleep in the Ritz in the lap of luxury in the nicest hotel room Ive ever been in. I woke up and walked to the autostadt next door, I found out later they couldve helped me book an english vw factory tour , but I got one for one a little later in the day, I started in the main building called group pavillion , its huge inside, theres some giant globe like thing and they have a dispaly upstairs w shoeing how they make clay models for car design, a cut away Porsche Panamera and there was a film showing how cars are made with some Porsche factory scenes, the other floors are some green energy sustainability displays, I walked past them, a worker seemed slightly miffed when she offered to change the film in the display theater to english for me to watch and I declined a I have zero interest in that propaganda, next to Zeit House a car museum, some Porsche 911s, 356, turbo and Carrera Gt, not bad display of significant autos there, then the tour of VW, starting with a short boat ride then a bus/train/tram thing that drove us through the factory it was much more like a quick disney ride than a technical tour, I also saw these giant car towers where new vw s are stored for people to do factory delivery, giant arms move the cars and you can sit in a box and get taken up into the tower

dark knight

after lunch I left heading for Leipzig I began to notice my car was getting filthy, at this point I tried manual shifting the paddles for a bit, but feel back into just using D, the car is loud at speed, awesome sounding and the engine changes note and you feel a kick when variocam/varioram? kicks in,(I feel like some honda guy "v-tec kicked in yo") gearchanges are lightning fast, the car feels perfect on steering and handling, its rear does feel a bit wide, Im beginning to realize this car is perfect, it feels like all its controls are solid, its feels like a bolt action rifle, mauser 98k?, Im getting more sued to driving at this point few cars pas me on the autobahn, its only a few hours to Leipzig, the Autobahn is pretty smooth, the Steignberger Grand hotel is impossible to find without a GPS