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Some of you may remember that I planned to take my brick to continental Europe this summer (from Norway) and that I was a bit nervous about exposing my short-trips-at-low-speed car to long stretches at high speeds and high temperatures. Well, the trip is now behind me, and I am happy to say that the car behaved perfectly.
Most of our driving was done in former East Germany, where the side roads were more or less like I am used to from home; two-lane, winding – and scenic. The real thrill was the Autobahn, with its non-existing maximum speed limit. With my loved ones as passengers, I didn't even try to push my brick beyond 100 mph. It felt quite intimidating to be doing 90-100 and nonetheless be constantly overtaken like you were standing still! These are the roads that the big BMWs and Mercedeses are really built for, one can only hope that we humans are built for those speeds too. When coming from a country where you will be heavily fined if caught above 55 on our few four-lane highways, it was kind of funny to observe that all the police did, was to weed out the ones going "slow" in the left lanes.
The German drivers seemed very disciplined, which made even an Autobahn novice like me feel comfortable. The only real scare occurred when we were passed by a greenish blur that turned out to be an Audi. Two kayaks were strapped to the roofrack, and just as it passed us one of the paddles came flying! It made an arc over our car and hit the road behind us. I didn't see it hit any cars, but that could easily have resulted in a major pile-up.
Other 240s were far between. When flying low through Denmark from north to south I only spotted two, and later only three on the Autobahn. I found it interesting to note that the one place with a relatively high number of 240s (and 740s) was inside former East Berlin. Our old bricks seem to have taken the role of the Trabant!
Our longest distance for one day was 530 miles, but trusty Sven Göran took it in a stride. I did not even have to top up with oil or coolant during the whole trip.
It was a great trip, the above focuses on the driving experiences only. But we did take the time to stop at nice places too:
As an aside, I suppose AC Cobras would have been rather far between in Karl Marx Allé fifteen years ago:
Erling.
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My 240 Page
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