Day 4 - Willesau to Stuttgart, 200 miles
Today was rearranged from my original route (which was more of the Black Forest) to take in Stuttgart and the Porsche and AMG museums tomorrow. Also on the way was some unrestricted autobahn - it would be a shame to not try, hey?
The day did start bright and sunny, enough to put suntan lotion on. The initial 30 miles to the German border was fairly dull and busy but the route improved after that, with some nice runs through forest.
Vic decided he wasn't bothered about the autobahn and decided to go try the famous B500.
And so we hit the autobahn, the 81 which was only 2 lanes and quite busy. Within a few minutes, I'd hit my personal record of 143mph before traffic got in the way. My son hit 183mph but a piece of his undertray then snapped off, so we came off for him to remove it completely before trying again. Unfortunately, the traffic didn't improve although I managed to do 150mph (for 2 seconds) before roadworks stopped play. It was a very thrilling 30 miles, however - at one point we were in a 10 car convoy, all doing 115mph!
Over 120mph, Barry did have some vibration but it wasn't from one part of the car so must likely just the general design - never felt dangerous but flying past a truck doing 2.5 times its speed was unnerving/exciting.
Off the autobahn, we had a great 60 miles or so on German L and K roads (equivalent to our B and unnamed roads, roughly) running through the Black Forest. Mostly smooth (but not as good as Swiss roads - whose are?), they twisted and turned through tall trees and wide open fields, with a small town every 5 miles or so. So fun, we only stopped a couple of times so far fewer pictures than normal - German cakes are the best:
By luck, I'd seen Weissach on the map and routed through there. I thought 'Weissach' just did performance accessories for Porsches, not knowing that it is actually the location of the main Porsche factory and possibly where Barry was born! It was a huge complex, with 100s of Porsches parked behind the fences - quite a sight.
Our hotel on the edge of Stuttgart and 1 mile from the Porsche museum, was surprisingly good for the price and we had a great steak in their restaurant.
My son then decided to go try again on a 3 lane autobahn, hoping the traffic would be lighter - a picture tells a 1000 words:
I'm just happy he's still alive but he's now a member of a very elite club - and it was all legal. Mad!!
Map of the day's route:
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