Not Quite Dead: Essen and Nurburg 2012

Despite a little radio silence here at TTS of late, I am here to tell you that we are alive and well and thinking, talking, and living cars. For me, the past several weeks have served as the lead-up to today: the start of my trip to Techno Classica Essen and the Nurburgring, by way of London Heathrow. First things first though: gotta give my props to my good friend and the current editor of PistonHeads, Dan Trent, for making the arrangements and more importantly, arranging the cars.

Dan and I, along with a couple of others, made this same journey a few years back in a brand-new Mercedes E500. The short version is that I fly in from the US to Heathrow, he fetches me, we then bee-line for the EuroTunnel where we cross the channel in the auto train. From there it’s a blast across the vast farmlands of Belgium and France, then crossing into Germany.

Tonight we will make our way to Nurburg, home of the famous (infamous?) Nurburgring. Tomorrow we hit the track. From there it is on to Essen and the vast Techno Classica classic car show which also, incidentally, includes the biggest and best parts swap meet for European cars I have ever had the pleasure to experience. And then we make our way back to Blighty, and I’m back to the real world. I’m looking forward to the rest of this trip – excepting the end….

Our chariot for the first leg of the adventure is a brand-spanking-new Porsche 911 GTS Carrera 4. Already I can tell you that the verdict on the car is a resounding “hell, yes!”.. And we haven’t even made the Autobahn yet! The seats even fit my tubby chassis….

I’ll be posting stories and photos as we progress, or go up an a fiery ball of miscalculation. Watch this space.

~Reed