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125 Years of the Car - Day 2
The Porsche Museum was easily my favourite of the three, which was also contributed to by the very knowledgeable tour guide, who actually drove one of the cars at the 2010 Goodwood Festival of Speed. I found the comments by Ferdinand Porsche dotted around the museum very interesting, my favourite of which 'In the beginning I looked around but couldn't find the car I dreamt of, so I decided to build it myself'. The line up of 911 Turbo's from 930 - 997 on revolving platforms at exactly the same turning speed was the longest point of admiration from me. I liked the nickname for the 930 Turbo as the 'Widow Maker', which was mentioned on a recent excursion by a PCGB member with reference to the outrageous turbo lag and tail out cornering. The museum was nowhere near the size of the Mercedes Museum but I preferred the more peaceful atmosphere, design of the building, more knowledgeable tour guide and better contents - I'm biased on this however.
The Audi Forum was much more of a conference facility with a plush restaurant, concert area and meeting room facilities. It was also a dealership location and near by all the factories. The R8 tour was a favourite with the group but cameras and recording devices were not allowed in. The Audi R8, A8 and Lamborghini Gallardo are completely aluminium and are all sprayed in this facility. The R8 is built here by hand and we were fortunate enough to walk the manufacturing line. A few facts - 4 x round exhausts is the V8, 2 x oval exhaust is V10 and 2 x round exhausts is the GT, which has a red cylinder head and only 333 are being made. 17 Audi R8's are built per day with an aluminium space frame and engines made in Hungary. Each car is only built after being ordered and paid for and the process can take 6 months. Once the customers car is ready, it is subject to a 100 km test drive on roads and rolling roads up to 200 km/h.
Burg Hornburg was the castle of choice for our second evening. Greeted by the Baron of the Castle, whose family has owned the castle since the 1600's, we were given a tour and the history on the area. This is a very grand venue with fantastic views and a good history on wine, which lead us onto the wine tour. We were given a brief history of the town by our tour guide who is a local farmer with his own chickens and producing his own alcohol. Walking through the scenic hills and taking in the various castles, our group was escorted through a tunnel under one of the buildings, revealing itself as an air raid shelter. The guide described the 1500 people who sat in these tunnels for several days at a time during the war and I was relieved to see day light at the end of the tunnel and being back out in the sun. After walking through the vin yards, we ended up looking down over the town with a very scenic view of the mountains and river. In front of us was a rebuilt shelter, which we thought nothing of until the front door was opened revealing an immaculately laid table with bottles of wine for us to try over dinner. By the time I'd tried a few, the only fact I can remember is that wine kept in oak barrels leaves you with a vanilla / cinnamon aftertaste and that you should not have wine, then raspberry schnapps and then beer on return, fantastic evening.
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