UPDATE: some highlights and photos from the trip posted below.

Hey all. I’ve spent some time reading this forum so am familiar with the general ED advice and experience from others. But wanted to get some opinions on my specific situation.

After many ups and downs since 2018 when I initially placed a deposit, Porsche finally confirmed ED for my 718 Spyder (although it was almost cancelled last week). Due to circumstances though, it’s later in the year than I wanted (Sept. 29 at Zuffenhausen) and I will only have 5 full days with the vehicle. Ideally I’d spend it mostly with alps/mountain driving but doesn’t seem like the weather will work out for that.

Any tips from those that have done ED around this time, to make the most of the 5 days? Thanks.

 

It's nice to see someone actually getting to do their ED....

 

I wasn’t hopeful the past few weeks, and I’m sad to see so many people have theirs cancelled. My delivery date was given to me back in May, but just 2 weeks ago I was told it wasn’t happening due to part shortages (despite my car being mostly fully produced). But somehow they made it happen. So I’m thankful to the Porsche gods, and a persistent SA, for this.

 

Try the Mosel trip on this thread. Should be fine for 5 days.Germany is not that big - when you need to head back, just point and drive 2 hours.. Use AirBnB a day or two out - there will be plenty of options - or just stay in the gasthouses in the villages.

Jealous!

 

Hey, happy for you! I just came back from my almost equally short ED trip. Trying to summarize it in this thread: https://rennlist.com/forums/european...y-journal.html

I drove the Bavarian Alps as part of my trip and overall I'd say it wasn't a great experience, definitely not the highlight of the trip. Traffic was pretty bad after 10 am and part of the problem is that I was trying to do all of the Bavarian Alps route in 2 days (which meant driving to 6 pm), I aborted that plan after 1 day.
I had a better time driving the Black Forest, although I only had time to do one short 1 hour route there.

 

How did it go? Where did you travel?

 

I just got back yesterday from what turned out to be an amazing delivery experience and week driving around Europe. I had initially planned for the trip to be within Germany, but looking at the weather a little over a week before I was to fly out it wasn’t looking great. Especially since I wanted enough top-down driving with the Spyder. So I changed around plans to head south to the Monaco/south of France area and then going back through northern Italy before coming back to Germany. In total, we did just over 35 hrs and 2300km in the car over the 6 days.

Here’s what the trip ended up being:
Stuttgart (2 nights) -> Lugano, CH (1 night) -> Monaco (2 nights) -> Trento, IT (1 night) -> Munich (1 night) where we dropped off the car and flew out from

This turned out to be an amazing mix of roads and we got lucky with weather and traffic for the most part. For each full driving day, I planned at most 5 hours on the road which gave enough time to stop and make some detours and arrive at the next destination before sunset. I’ll try to summarize some highlights:

Delivery day and the black forest
This being my first ED experience, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. My delivery was scheduled for 8AM at Zuffenhausen. Immediately after arriving and sitting in the delivery lounge, it felt special. The mix of seeing other ED cars ready and waiting, and the historic building that surrounded them, was an amazing way to start the morning. Shortly after, a Porsche rep took us to the delivery garage and unveiled my Spyder. It was a really happy moment seeing it for the first time in person. After that, another Porsche guide took us on a tour. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to tour the factory inside due to COVID restrictions. But our guide spent more time with us in the museum, and also taking us into some other parts of the site that were really interesting to see before we did lunch at the restaurant they have onsite. Overall, it felt like a special experience that I’ll always remember.

Since we essentially were done there just after lunch, we had time to go for a drive in the Stuttgart area. I had bookmarked a destination in the Black Forest, near Baden Baden, that was supposed to be a great driving road. It did not disappoint, and weather was near perfect with sun and a mix of clouds/mist that made the drive epic.







Swiss alps
From Stuttgart, we made our way south through the Swiss alps. Even though I was still taking it easy with break in, driving on some of the unrestricted/high speed sections of highway getting there was amazing. Car felt great cruising at 150+ km/h. As we drove through a part of the Swiss alps, there were two mountain passes I had bookmarked: the Splugen pass and the San Bernardino pass. Both did not disappoint and weather was beautiful with the sun out.




Monaco and area
After a stop in Lugano, Switzerland (a really lovely and mostly Italian speaking town on a beautiful lake) we made our way through Italy towards Monaco. We got some great views driving along the Mediterranean coast, and it was surreal driving into Monaco (and slightly confusing with the tight roads and all the tunnels in Monte Carlo). The next day, we ventured a bit into the French hills where unexpectedly I encountered the most fun driving roads of the trip. Col de Vence and Route de Gentelly I believe is what we drove.








Italian alps
On the way back to Germany, we passed through part of the Italian alps near Austria that was just endless beautiful scenery (we had afternoon coffee at “Bar Zentral” in Compatch). I really loved the variety of scenery and roads we got on the trip, and different parts of the alps had completely different views and driving.




Overall, the delivery and trip exceeded all my expectations and it was one of the best weeks of my life. Oh, and the Spyder is pretty great as well

 

Great write up - thanks!

 

Thank you for the super report and pics! Lucky you made the trip before the program shut down..