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Great write up. I need to cancel some of my Vegas trips and get over to Germany. Now comes the long wait for her to come home.
BTW love the last name....how often do you have to spell it out for people in a day? Its a good one
I thought I could handle the wait, after all, I've been waiting 13 months already, but its really tough. Especially so considering its 75 a beautiful here in San Diego.
Heh, you know your last name is long when there is a cadence to how you spell it for people.
Originally Posted by realdrray
......makes me wish i did european delivery, always thought about it with my M cars, next time i'm definitely going to do it and hopefully it'll be another P car......awesome thread.
Yes, this trip is a must for all of us car enthusiasts. For you BMW fans I think its a no-brainer considering the discount (7-8%?) they extend. This was my first ever new car purchase, but if I'm in a position to buy a new car again I will certainly do European Delivery.
Originally Posted by matttheboatman
Wow, Chris I was just thinking about you and wondering how was the trip. Great pic taking delivery!
I am looking forward to reading the rest of the story about your trip!
Did you survive the Nurburgring?
Hey Matt, I survived the 'Ring (thanks to Dale), but I'll have more on that in a later post. I'll start writing now...
Our adventure kicks off leaving Stuttgart on our way to Tyrol, Austria 700kms away. The goal is to drive the Grossglockner Pass. So, plenty of time to soak in the car, so here are some impressions:
* first goal was to pull out of the Porsche delivery center without any drama - the clutch is perfectly weighted with a pickup thats very easy to modulate.
* the shifter is perfection - enough said.
* the interior feels special - the brushed aluminum trim has a nice grain and has a depth that is not apparent in the pics. Its a perfect match to the platinum stitching while being an excellent contrast to all of the alcantara. I don't notice the plastic bits on the steering wheel that have bothered others. The leather and deviated stitching on the steering wheel column is an excellent option to spec for the cost; it looks great. The combination of the LWBs and red seat belts makes for a stunning and exotic feel.
* overall comfort - compared to my 987.1, the GT4 is more compliant, comfortable, and refined. While this might seem natural for a car almost a decade newer, I was prepared for a loud and slightly harsh ride. The much debated LWBs were so comfortable, I was able to do 19 hours in the first 2 days and over 2000kms in the first 3 days. No complaints. The buckets were so comfortable that my girlfriend fell asleep in them!
* the car makes Jekyl and Hyde sounds - the car is much quieter from what I expected when just cruising, but she wails at WOT. If you want to giggle like an idiot, just find a tunnel. Keep looking in your rearview mirror, you won't find the straight-piped race car you think is behind you...thats you. Incredibly aggressive, but without any of the annoying/artificial overrun the GTS and 911 PSE has.
* I don't need any stinking auto-blipping sport mode - yes I do...its surprisingly enjoyable and a welcome edition on the track.
Ok, back to the journey as we refuel for the first time and need to call an audible.
As I mentioned earlier, the temp dropped about 15-20 degrees from a few days prior. Reports of snow on the pass mean I have to travel the long way to our hotel. That means I have to skip the route from Hahntennjoch to Imst and go the long way through the tunnels.
Every 10 minutes the temp continues to drop as the rain comes down. First night in a brand new expensive car + foreign country + 40 degree rain + Cup2s = stress! Car performs great and the tires got me there safe...what a relief!
We get to the Grandhotel Lienz around 11pm, walk for a celebratory we-made-it-alive beer, and call it a night. We wake up to news that there is snow on the pass, so unfortunately I won't be able to drive this amazing road. 0 for 2. You can see the heavy fog covering the mountains:
This is what its supposed to look like (borrowed from Matt's thread) :
The hotel is nice, wish we could stay and enjoy it, but a few quick pics and we're off:
Ok, time to head off for the Black Forest.
We enjoy some fun small town roads from Zell am See to Kufstein. We didn't stop for photos, but the whole ride was rolling green mountains, small quaint villages, with various lakes and rivers scattered along the way. Not the scenary I'm used to, a nice treat.
Our GPS gets confused and decides we should lap the one way construction roads of Munich a few times. The closer we get to the Black Forest, the more the temp continues to drop. Light rain/mist continues as the temps drop into the low 30s. Visions of my new car sliding right off the road dance in my head. I can hear everyone saying don't you know Cup2s don't like cold or rain?!? Ok I can deal, I mean it can't get worse...and cue the heavy fog:
We can't see 5 feet past the car, so its 15 mph for the final 45 minutes.
We arrive safely as the temp hits 34 degrees (hooray Cup2s!) and call it a night. So we'll end here for now. More to come...
Fantastic thread, I'm at Stuttgart airport boarding to fly home.
Loved it.
My thread over on 991 GT3 is not as detailed, i dont make great photo's like you and my whirlwind track tour didn't leave us much time to write it all up.
I'll have to catch up once I get home, catch up with real life.
Dropped off my car yesterday after 5 weeks and many track days, tracked many tracks but also got in some nice street driving.
After bonding properly it's harder to wait for the car to arrive at home than the years of waiting for the car to finally get build.
Met up with many GT4's and they sound great. Better than an RS at least at lower RPM but maybe at all RPM.
I also was passed by GT4's the car is incredibly capable as a tourer and track weapon.
Fantastic thread, I'm at Stuttgart airport boarding to fly home.
Loved it.
My thread over on 991 GT3 is not as detailed, i dont make great photo's like you and my whirlwind track tour didn't leave us much time to write it all up.
I'll have to catch up once I get home, catch up with real life.
Dropped off my car yesterday after 5 weeks and many track days, tracked many tracks but also got in some nice street driving.
After bonding properly it's harder to wait for the car to arrive at home than the years of waiting for the car to finally get build.
Met up with many GT4's and they sound great. Better than an RS at least at lower RPM but maybe at all RPM.
I also was passed by GT4's the car is incredibly capable as a tourer and track weapon.
Enjoy the rest of your trip!!
I'm already back from my trip; I didn't have time to post while I was oversees, but you are so right about the wait once you've bonded. I feel incomplete, so this thread is how I'm coping. I'm glad everyone is enjoying it.
Originally Posted by GrantG
That's great, Chris! Brings back memories of my recent trip (your license plate is just a little later than Trakcar's and mine that are sequential).
Sorry we didn't cross paths - maybe next time
Sorry we couldn't meet up Grant; I hope Dijon was fun.
That is neat about the plates being sequential. They have a nice resting place now in the cabinet next to my sim rig!
So glad to hear about your positive delivery experience after such a long wait for the car, Chris! The car looks fantastic. Looking forward to you fleshing the story out with more words and pics, since you have a long wait for a slow boat in front of you. It will be great to see you out at a PCA-SDR event again when it arrives stateside.
So glad to hear about your positive delivery experience after such a long wait for the car, Chris! The car looks fantastic. Looking forward to you fleshing the story out with more words and pics, since you have a long wait for a slow boat in front of you. It will be great to see you out at a PCA-SDR event again when it arrives stateside.
TT
Hey Tom! Yes, it has been a long wait...I missed the entire season this year. It will be nice to come back out and compete with everyone. I wonder what class she will spec out to...maybe we'll get go head to head next season?
Oh, and as much as I still don't want or even think it will happen, from some rumblings I heard you may just get your wish after all. More on that rumor to come...
Ok, let's pick up our story as we wake up the next morning, having no idea what our surroundings look like (on account of the previous night's the White Walker-esque fog), to the sight of Lake Mummelsee.
Yeah, it got a little cold.
But nothing some wild boar sausage can't cure. Between this and the venison ragout, we were pretty happy.
The main reason we came to Black Forest was for the B500. This was the 3rd road from the 'Top Driving Roads in Europe' that was on my list. Despite the weather, since I had missed out on the first 2, I wasn't going 0 for 3.
The road was fantastic. Smooth switchback style flowing turns that cut through the hills. Even better some of the guardrails along the side were red and white mimicking a race track. At this point I was up to about 1600km so I was able to stretch my self-imposed 4000 rpm limit up to 5000 - such a tease! Coming from my old Cayman, I never felt this car to be lacking low end grunt, but the power really starts to come on in the higher part of the band.
I enjoyed this road so much, I looped around and did it again. Besides, its the first time I wasn't really driving in rain! Unfortunately, I lost track of time and had to hustle back to Stuttgart as we had dinner reservations at Christophorus and planned to hit the Porsche Museum beforehand. Rush hour traffic and some construction made us a bit late, so that meant we would have to rush through the museum. However, much like the Mercedes museum, we had the place to ourselves!
Ok, I'll stop...I can post these all day. Talk about a kid in a candy store. We had the entire museum to ourselves, I felt like we broke into the place!
On the way to Christophorus, you can see into the shop. Check out the the 964 and 997.2 GT3RS in a beautiful magenta-like color (cue Eduardo with the proper paint name/code).
The food at Christophorus was good, but the ambiance was better. Model cars are on each table. Straight ahead was the open kitchen guarded by a large Steve McQueen + Gulf 917 statue. To my left is the museum glass so you could still peer in through the semi-closed blinds. Behind us you have a wall of wine and a hidden cigar bar. The menu is made from the same leather as our interiors and had this quote that was befitting of this trip and made me smile:
A clever man once said: "I have very simple taste. Just bring me the best of everything."
We couldn't stick around for the cigar bar as we had to get to our next 'hotel' 1.5 hours away:
...but I wasn't passing up the chance to pop in and get a his (Behike!) and hers to go:
We're off to the walled medieval city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Its 8:30pm and after asking for an extension our latest check in time is 10pm. We're 1.5 hours away, so we should make it just in time. Naturally we hit more construction and it begins to rain...
Oh, and as much as I still don't want or even think it will happen, from some rumblings I heard you may just get your wish after all. More on that rumor to come...
10-27-2015, 08:12 PM
(borrowed from Matt's thread) :
