125 Years of the Car - Day 3

The Auto Technic museum is insured for 60 million euros, however one of the Ferrari's is worth 7 million euros alone, which is a 246 GT Dino. The museum includes planes which you can walk on such as the Concorde and the museum hosts various car rallys through the year. The museum is Beaulieu x 10 including racing cars from past and present, exotic road cars, war vehicles, planes and steam trains.

 

Hockenheim was under refurbishment for hosting the 2010 Germany F1. Although we couldn't really drive on the track, we did have an opportunity to walk the circuit, check out the hospitality boxes and see the pits and paddock. The track costs 17,000 euros per day to hire on non-race days, however Hockenheim must pay 20m euros to hold the F1, which breaks even selling 100k tickets averaging 200 euros. Last race they made 5m euro loss. The photos shown from the glass fronted hospitality box looking over the track are 1000 euros per person and will be a seated event including lunch and drinks.

 

Europaischer Hof hotel is a famous 5 star spa hotel in Heidelberg, which is like a German equivalent of Oxford. Recommendations for places to stay and eat were thrown around left, right and centre, however the ones I would pass on are Simplicissimus restaurant for food wine and Reichsapfel bar in the evening. There is a cable car from Heidelberg town centre to the castle in the hills. This must be the best scenery in Germany.

 

125 Years of the Car - Day 4

Dr Karl Benz Museum is the building originally used for the manufacturing line of his early cars. On show is a replica 1886 1 cylinder model 1, which sounds like a steam engine and uses more water than petrol. At the time you could only buy gasoline for cleaning clothes and therefore was difficult to get hold of enough. A charming story was told of Dr Karl Benz's wife driving off in the car and having to pop into a shop to get more petrol and having to fill up with small bottles. As the mobile phone did not exist Dr Karl Benz could only communicate with his wife via letter. The model 3 is the oldest original car and is present in this museum and there are some cars which took part in the London - Brighton rally this year. Technoseum featured an old Porsche 911 manufacturing line, Mercedes robot, steam trains, Wankel rotary engined Merc SL and hydro-boat.