Nürburgring + new Porsche Museum + Panamera + Autostadt 27.05-03.06.2009 Germany Peep Pihotalo (OpenTrack.pri.ee) started organizing the Nürburgring trip in the beginning of January. We have always driven there by land, but Peep's idea was to rent a trailer for cars. What a great idea! It is 2200 km from Tallinn to Nürburgring, so sending the cars on truck and flying over there is a great solution. The best solution James thinks. But Kristjan wants to drive, so we put the yellow 968 on the trailer and drive Kristjan's 993 there. Loading the cars to the trailer on May 24. Note the green 997 GT3 RS! As we will be going to Germany by car, we plan to visit the New Porsche Museum, of course. More to that, we even planned to visit the Panamera factory in Leipzig. How come, the Panamera is not for sale yet? Porsche press release from May 13 (4 months before Panamera market launch) invited to visit the Panamera factory which was opened after the long period it was closed for secret Panamera factory set up. We contacted Porsche Leipzig for the factory visit, but they said they are fully booked already. We had sent the application immediately after the press release was released. Strange. Ready to rock! Tallinn-Leipzig-Ludwigsburg-Bietigheim-Bissingen-Weissach-Stuttgart-Karlsruhe-Nürburgring-Wolfsburg-Tallinn=5000 km TomTom's navi has a white GT3 icon on it. We followed the GT3 for 5000 km, but had no chance to catch it. 997 GT3 is quicker than 993 C2. Poland. MAN truck made out of twigs. Handycrafted MAN must cost more than the real thing?. Our first destination in Germany was Leipzig Porsche plant. We wanted to see the Panamera with our own eyes. We saw many Panameras during our short visit, but only from distance. Sorry, we do not have photos as the sign before the factory grounds permitted taking photos. We respect Porsche and we didn't take any photos, even though it would have been very easy. We wanted to see more Panameras and to take photos, so we had plan B for that. Ludwigsburg. Porsche Travel Club car park. They have finally updated the 997's to facelift models. In November 2008 we had a chance to drive with the Travel Club cars and they were old model, although the facelift model came out already in July 2008. Bietigheim-Bissingen. Headquarters of Porsche Consulting, Porsche Deutschland, Porsche Engineering Services, Porsche Financial Services, Porsche Lizenz- und Handelsgesellschaft (Porsche Design Group). Plan B was very simple - where could we find Panameras? In Stutggart-Zuffenhausen is the easy answer, but the other and better answer is Weissach. A small village that is home for Porsche Research & Development Center. Enjoy the photos: Please bear in mind these photos were made 3.5 months before Panamera market launch in Germany! Porsche AG produced 296 Panameras in 9 months of fiscal year 2008/2009 (01.08.2008-30.04.2009). Sounds strange as the market launch is not before 12.09.2009? Well, they have to produce democars for all the Porsche centers in the world. We guess, it can require 1000-2000 cars. Now, please scroll up to the second photo with Panamera. There is a new SUV prototype on the photo. We saw it only just when we were back at home and were looking through the photos. We were in Weissach to shoot Panameras and completely forgot to keep our eyes open for other prototypes. OK, I admit, Cayenne is not our dream car and we just looked through it. We thought it was the current Cayenne. Note the door mirror mounted on doors and the C-pillar - silver stripe on it is camouflage, look closer to see the real C-pillar - it is completely different from the current Cayenne. Damn it. I wish so much, I could have noticed this car onsite. Panamera is very old news compared to this car. Panamera is still the better news though. So we headed to our hotel in Stuttgart, to visit the new Porsche museum next morning. We didn't know where the hotel was, so we just entered the address in the excellent TomTom. We couldn't be more surprised when we reached the hotel - it was in Zuffenhausen and not in some other of the 17 districts of Stuttgart and it was 200 metres from the Porsche plant. This is not real - some higher forces have helped us to select that hotel. We just had searched the net for a hotel in Stuttgart, but managed to coincidentally land on the closest hotel to our holy place. For your information, Stuttgart is a 200 km2 city with 600.000 inhabitants (5.3 million with satellite citys). Despite we drove non-stop for the last 25 hours and 2200 km, we took a walk in Zuffenhausen before falling to beds. First we saw a strange Cayenne in the yard of Werk 1. Note the power cord plugged in Cayenne. The flap for the gasoline is located on the right side as normally. What car was it then? Prototypes with hybrid powerplants were constructed on the facelift Cayenne (957) and they are non-plugable hybrids. This is the original old model Cayenne (955), but with a power plug. Maybe this car was just built for some special task and it had some special equipment in it, which needs electricity 24 hours. Sorry, that we cannot solve this mystery. It is not common that on Sportauto.ee you will have some Porsche-related question unanswered. More Panamera photos will follow. The place where the photos were made is special - you can always see prototypes and new models there which will be launched after some months. Where is it? We keep Porsche AG's secret, but if you really want to find it, you will find it. Tip: it is in Zuffenhausen. Yahting Blue Turbo, black 4S and Platinum Silver Turbo. Note the 3-ways extending rear spoiler on the silver Turbo. Aqua Blue Panamera 4S New car stock in Zuffenhausen. Cayenne S Transsyberia 2008 Porsche Zentrum Stuttgart Nice number plate for someone, who's initials are J and H Panamera looks good in white (or in black) American model (note the side light on front bumper) Next morning we headed to the new Porsche Museum. We visited it already in the end of 2008, when it wasn't open for the public yet and since then couldn't wait to get back there - to see it finished. The New Museum was opened on January 31, 2009. We are here on May 29, but the building is only 99.9% finished, not 100%. Approximately 200.000 Porsche-fans have already visited it. That is a lot compared to the old museum, which was visited by ca 80.000 persons a year. Construction worker finishing the front of the new museum 1987 911 concept car. You can see the 911 Speedster prototype in it. The production 911 Speedster came out in 1989 and looked more similar to the 911 Cabriolet. Aluminium body of a 1939 racing car constructed by Porsche (called Typ 60K10 and Typ 64). After the war Porsche fixed the letters "PORSCHE" on that car. So this one is the first Porsche, not the 356/1 from 1948. Hollow-spoke wheel prototype. Hollow-spoke wheels were used in 993 Turbo and 996 Turbo. One of the 911 prototypes, the "T7" from 1959 (2-liter 4-cylinder 130hp). Fortunately this shape didn't go to production because Ferry Porsche thought that appealing design is more important than practicality and he deleted the full size rear seats. Porsche 911S/915 (1970) - another study trying to make more space for the rear occupants. The wheelbase was extended 350mm. We saw this car first time in July 2006 when we visited Porsche Restoration Department. Boxster prototype from 1993. Well, the Boxster 986 production model (1996-2004) wasn't that beautiful. PORSCHE-lettered tyres on the Boxster prorotype - cool! 924 GTP Le Mans (2.5L, 410 hp) from 1981. It is sort of 944 prototype. 944 went into production in 1982. Note the borderless, more aerodynamic roof of the 924 GTP. Production cars never received it. Roof edge in street cars was also used for fixing the roof rack. 956 mounted in the ceiling - the point of this display was to demonstrate the huge downforce of the 956 - upon the speed of 321.4 km/h the car's downforce exceeds the car weight and therefore it would basically be possible to drive upside town. 961 - a racing version of the 959. 959 is probably the ultimate Porsche of all times, but when the 959 had a detuned racing engine, the 961 had the full power version with 680 hp's. With displacement of only 2.85-liters, this is an amazing engine. It is basically the same engine that was used in Le Mans winning 936 and 956 racing cars. 961 was the first and last 4WD Porsche to start in Le Mans. Four wheel drive is not for performance cars - 4WD makes the car heavier and the 4WD-system resistance makes the car slower at top speed. 4WD sports cars are only for people who cannot drive their cars and for people living in Antarctica. 924 prototype (1974). This is the first Porsche with engine in the front and gearbox in the rear. It had the 50/50 weight distibution. It was the beginning for the 924-944-968 series - these cars were said to be the best handling cars in the world at the time of production. Porsche 928 boat engine (type M28/70) - 5.0V8 bi-turbo, 750 hp. This engine was ordered by racing driver Jacky Ickx. Fleet of the 917 racing cars. There were a lot of different racing cars that were called 917. The one in front is 917/30, the most powerful Porsche ever produced and the most powerful race track car ever (5.4-litre 12-cyl. bi-turbo, ca 1600 hp). It basically competed only one season (1973) as the fuel consumption limit was introduced after they saw this beast. Rallye version of 959. Two 959 took the 1-2 win in 1986 Paris-Dakar. What is that? Porsche AG has given 911 for the police forces? PAG has betraded Porsche drivers? The 993 police car was to mark the 1.000.000 Porsche produced on 15.07.1996. And PAG did not betrade Porsche drivers - they gave to police the car with the lazy Tiptronic gearbox ;-) So the police could only catch the people who bought Porsches with Tiptronic. That's OK, because buying a Porsche with automatic gearbox is a felony and these people must be catched by the police. Tiptronic gearbox in police 911. Nice joke. 1997 Porsche 911 996 GT1 Street-version Carrera GT number 0001 This was our biggest surprise in the New Museum - a 4-door 928. We knew about the extended roof 928, which was made for Ferry Porsche's birthday in 1984 (Porsche 942), but we never heard of a 4-door extended wheelbase version. That was a small shock for persons who have studied Porsche history for 10 years. The 4-door 928 prorotype was called "H 50" (reason unknown to us). Year: 1987. There are many interesting things about that car. Firstly, the rear-winding rear doors (Mazda started using the same idea on a RX-8). Then the modified front seats which incorporate seat belts as there is basically no B-pillars anymore. I would say, the car has A, C and D-pillars. The 2 middle buttons used to be for sunroof and rear wiper, but are now replaced with the power window buttons of the rear windows. Looks quite funny. In Germany they have so many 911's, that they have started to cut them in halves Glay model showing how a body prototype is created It is time to head to Nürburg. But first we want to visit Freisinger Motorsport in Karlsruhe to check one small thing with our car. After that we plan to head to Nürburg, but we head to traffic jams instead. Who remembers German autobahns 10 years ago (or even better 20 years ago as the "older people" recall), they cannot understand what has happened - traffic jams are so common now on highways so you really cannot calculate the time for the journey from A to B. We spend the time in "Stau", while our friends already enjoyed the fruits of the Green Hell. Note the red 911 Turbo in the garage Waiting line. Porsche, Lotus, Porsche, Porsche - things are just exactly how we like. Except the waiting. 780 hp Viper from our "gang" Our friends from Finland. And the Porsche concentration is once again tolerable Here we go again... ¤#¤%%%¤¤ damn bikers!!! Most of them cannot drive and because of them the track is closed after every hour in average. It is just so amazing how stupid these bikers can be, how can they make so many crashes there?? The other thing is they never look in the mirrors, so when you want to pass them, you have to always wait for the right moment for too long time. It seems that there is approximately only one biker every day, who understands that he has not bought the full track, but only a track ticket. Most of the bikers there don't care about other drivers. If you consider that the track is 20 km long and on the peak hours there could be a car or bike after approximately every 200 metres, so then it makes 100 racers on the track at one time. Yes! Porsches have always been made for racing and the owner of that oldtimer has got it all right. We have seen many oldtimer sportscar owners who never use their sportscars for making sport. And that's wrong. You can polish your car in the VW Beetle club also, but sportscars have been made and must be used for sport. They deserve that. They deserve owners, who understand that. Brünnchen curve After Day 2, when the track was closed, we took Nordschleife express courses in the trackwalk form. That was really well spent hour! Ron Simons and Dale Lomas - our instructors from RSR Nürburg Schwedenkreuz curve further away and Aremberg curve in front - these are the first curves after the quickest part of the track (I mean on the tourist days, when the main straight Döttinger Höhe cannot be run without stopping for the new lap). Famous Caroussel curve - as you can see from the lines in tarmac, fast cars are pressed hardly to the ground in this virage. Our cars waiting us back from the trackwalk. They know, that now we know something we didn't know before and therefore they will be driven more aggressively tomorrow. They like it and they can't wait tomorrow to arrive. We neither... (c) www.ring-bilder.de As told before, the accidents on the track happened very often and during one such break, we made visit to the Nürburg castle. It is on top of the highest hill in Nürburg. Inside the walls of Nürburg castle. View from the top of the castle tower (zoomed-in view) - you can see a small part of the Nordschleife hidden in these forests. Picturesque. I mean the track. The Nürburg village. Yes, it is that small! And during the winter you hardly see any living soul here. On the top right you can see the Nürburgring GP track facilities. Back to track. You can see the ticket office top right. Here you can buy tickets for the world's most expensive toll road (approx. 1 EUR/1 km). 911 997 GT3 RS in green... ...and in orange. These 2 colors are the best looking. There were 3 other color combinations available for RS. CLK 63 AMG Black Series, 507 hp. There were at least two of them, both black. Scroll down to see the other one. It looks different. "Our man" on Quiddelbacher Höhe (c) E40racer.be (c) mw-sportfoto.de (c) mw-sportfoto.de (c) mw-sportfoto.de (c) ring-bilder.de (c) nordschleife-24.de (c) mw-sportfoto.de (c) ring-bilder.de Freedom of speech Hocheichen is the name of the curve. The lower sign reminds you that traffic rules apply here - taking over from the left only. Warning sign at the end of the straight before the Schwedenkreuz curve. It is the fastest part of the track on tourist days. Here you drive quite fast and there is no chance that you could read this sign while driving. "Our" GT3 RS did here over 250 km/h and even in a less powerful car (for example our 968), you are doing here a lot more than 200 km/h. In memory of somebody... Empty photo - for what you think? It shows the replaced barrier. If you drive off the track and touch the barrier heavily enough, the printer in Nürburgring GmbH office starts to print invoice for you. That is costly. Drive-off marks in Schwedenkreuz curve This sign is more serious than you believe Swedes' Cross or Schwedenkreuz is a stone cross that was put up here in memory of a murdered tax collector. He was killed by Swedish troops during the Thirty Year's War (1618–1648). Approx. 250 km/h The curve after Flugplatz (and before Schwedenkeuz). The track section was named after the airfield that existed on the left side of the track. (c) mw-sportfoto.de The track was closed for accident - again! And here is the reason - the second CLK 63 AMG Black Series. You think this driver is stupid - we too, but not because he crashed. Everyone would crash in a car that's engine is an A-bomb connected to an automatic gearbox. Only Stiq can handle driving over 500 hp car on a racing track with automatic gearbox. We think the driver is stupid because when he bought that car, he thought it was made for the race track. The second entrance to the track at Breidscheid. This exit you can use when something happened to your car on the track and you don't want to drive the full lap. This gate is mainly used by the drivers who have yearly-passes as with normal ticket you want to drive for all your money. Somebody seems to be against 24 hour races. This is not the place to advertise it - here everyone is for it. 100 octane fuel has ended at the gas station next to the track - how cool is that! The best 911 design ever. The 993 and the Nürburg castle in the back After 3 days in Nürburg, we head back home. With a stop in Wolfsburg's Autostadt ("Car city"). It is the Volkswagen Group exhibition center. It is quite large, but there isn't so much to do (except if you happen to be a VW fan). We wanted to visit the place for the reason that Bugatti, Bentley and Lamborghini belong to VW Group. As we found out onsite, there was no sign of Bentley (except one oldtimer beside other cars in museum). VW W12 Coupé "Nardo". 6.0W12 600 hp, 350+km/h. Made many world records in 2002 when it was driven 24 hours at the Nardo track with average speed of 323 km/h and covering 7749 km. Between 1997-2001 many VW W12 concept cars were produced incl. W12 Roadster. Lamborghini Diablo GT no.1. There were 83 GT's produced between 1999-2000 and 2903 Diablos totally produced between 1990-2001. GT tech specs: 6.0V12 575 hp, 338 km/h. Ferry Porsche at the steering wheel of a VW Cabrio prototype (ca 1936) Das Autobahn (ca 1938) Ferry Porsche (Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche) and his father, Dr.Ferdinand Porsche between VW prototypes (ca 1938) 1935 Auto Union Typ-C co-engineered by Ferdinand Porsche. Tech specs: 6.0V16, 520 hp, 750 kg, 1.44 kg/hp, 340 km/h. The weight-to-power ratio was 2 times better than on for example today's 997 GT2 (2.86 kg/hp)! And look at the tyres - 340 km/h! Beutler. Technics from Porsche 356A. Note the dummy front grille - the car had air-cooled engine and it was located in the back! Premium Club House (Bugatti House) Two towers full of cars. They are 20 stories high car stocks, which are accessed only by the lift-robots. So after you have paid the car, the robot-lift goes to the right level, picks up the car and brings it down to you. Looked interesting, but why you need it? Maybe it helps selling boring cars. OK, enough of Germany! After 17 hours we reached home in Tallinn (1757 km from Wolfsburg). Don't want to miss the next event? Please send your e-mail for the mailinglist to 911@sportauto.ee