DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

Day 6

It was now the start of the journey North and where better to head than the Black Forest. The roads started off great from the hotel as we headed upto Lake Konstance, but as expected as soon as we got to the lake the traffic got heavy , not helped with road closures. I've never liked it around there but needs must to be able to crack on to the Black Forest. Due to all the traffic we got split up again so we continued on waiting for a regroup. All was going well until we got a call from JP to say he'd got a flat tyre on the Autobahn , so we pulled into the first parking area and awaited for him to turn up with his 1970's space saver fitted.


Luckily JohnM had a full sized spare he swapped onto JP's car when it turned up and we quickly found a tyre place only 15 mins from where we were in a local town. We all rolled upto the first tyre place and had little success as they had no 15" tyres, especially nothing to fit an 8" fuch . So with hunger kicking in it was decided most of the group should grab some food and head on following the route and some of us would stay and see if we could sort a tyre. Boydy spoke to a local privately own tyre place at the far end of town so 3 of us nipped up there to see what they could do. They were fantastic , dropped what they were doing and pulled out a temp 195/65 to fit to JP's car ( to allow John to have his spare back for the rest of the trip home ) but inisisted that was an emergency fitting but really JP shouldnt drive too far on it. The tyre man had tried to source correct size tyres that afternoon , even phoning a friend who had an old porsche with the correct sizes ( he'd thrown out his spare tyre the week earlier ! ) . In the end, the tyre guy said he could get the correct rear tyres ( a pair) shipped to him for the morning and have JP back on the road by 8:30am.... even suggesting a nice hotel they could stay at. JP decided this was the best option, so him & his passenger Simon decided to stay whilst me , Richard & Boydy headed on to the hotel in Baden Baden ( which was still some distance away )






It was sad to leave them , but was best to be safe.

SO, running behind schedule, the 3 of us abandoned the planned route & blatted on up into the black forest on the famous 500 ( I was trying to keep off this road as its too famous and busy these days ) . After a frustrating drive as we neared Baden Baden, we had a little bit of time to spare so we went off piste and found a real fun road ... a full on narrow rough hill climb kind of thing . What a way to end a pretty shitty day and what a drive to end the last of the fun days before tomorrows motorway slog .

We finally rolled up to the hotel , minus JP but to be greated with Adams 1973 car looking fantastic that the Porsche centre where it had been dropped had managed to fix ( with a little persuasion from the 6ft2 owner ) .. to be fair they did a great job and also fixed it free of charge . Great service.



Forgot to mention .. Baden Baden is difficult to get hotels with parking so our solution was this posh hotel







An evening in town followed but we were worn out by this point.




That evening we parted into our respective travel groups and said our goodbyes as the tunnellers were leaving early where as us Rotterdam guys had more time on our side.
The return to Rotterdam was a slog and as boring as ever but we had little excitement when Ian's front brake started binding on . All good after a fettle and back on the ferry for the journey home to Hull





Motorway lunch


The final fuel and pee stop

To sum up .. what a trip . Enjoyed every bit of it . Superb roads, superb food , plenty of beer & plenty of laughter & most importantly great friends to share it all with. We will skirt around the cost of the fuel though

( appologies if it might seem slight self indulgent posting about the trip, but the story & photos etc are too good not to share and serve as a good record for those of us with poor memories )

Fabulous thread, cheered me very much.
Been to almost all those places over the years in far less dramatic fashion so good to see it again.
Really good to read James.

Great pictures and write up, thanks for taking the time. A trip to remember. Something I need to do one day.

Who’s is the yellow 964RS?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As James said it might feel a bit self indulgent, but hey, it was awesome and if it can inspire others to get out and use their cars whilst they can then so much the better.

The tunnellers (minus JP due to his tyre issues) headed out early and cruised the autoroutes till Epernay where I peeled off to buy some bubbles and then on to Reims so a trip to the old circuit just outside is essential for any petrolhead.

Despite a bit of restoration it still has all the character, and you can now get safely up to the top for some different angles.

Sorry (or maybe not! ) for all the pics, it's just such a great place.







My delay taking pics meant I caught up with JP and Simon in the tunnel car park which was a great way to end the trip seeing everyone back up and running.

Needless to say the UK side of the journey sucked massively, but back home after 700 miles and 17hrs... The car is working perfectly ready to go again. I need a rest though!

Fantastic pics and what a trip - loved reading about it James et al. Thanks for sharing and reminding me why we have such great useable cars.

Brilliant stuff, thank you for sharing the story. I enjoyed reading it and the cracking photos.

Great Thread, thanks for the story and pics. I can't help wondering if my wee 356 would stay within sight of you 6 cylinder men on a trip like this.....hmmmm.......i'd love to try......W

Great story and pictures. Thanks for sharing such a fabulous trip and great to see the cars being used as intended even with a bit of drama at the end. Great organisation by James as usual. Some of those roads/passes look incredible and the stopovers for the odd beer and food looked perfect.

Regards
Mike

Thanks for the thread. Really enjoyed it. I'm not sure I'd trust my 50 year old car on such a long trip.

Sent from my SM-G988B using Tapatalk

Jon, the yellow RS belongs to a good friend who lives not far from me

Winston, you’d be fine as 4 pots can pedal along well, where you’d miss the punch is on the uphill overtakes and the drags out of the bends.

That is what never ceases to amaze me about these old cars.

We drive them nearly 500 miles to the alps, rag them around mountain passes for a week, drive them 500 miles home and I can still drive it to work on Monday morning.

What other 40/50 year old cars could do that?

I love reading reports like this, keep them coming. On the B500, on a trip to Stuttgart a couple of weeks ago it was the worst road we went on. It was a tick in the box, I knew I would be disappointed and it had cameras, but I couldn't believe the last few miles into Baden Baden it was 50kph. So boring!

What a wonderful trip and as others have said thank you for taking the time to document it and upload these wonderful images.

That's some way to celebrate your 50th!

Puncture repaired and a replacement set of tyres were duly provided by the local tyre fitters…a really helpful bunch of guys who were great to deal with….a 8.5 hour slog up through France to complete the European leg ……a bit of a delay at Calais…and then the cold weather and shite driving standards of UK traffic

I think this picture sums it all up nicely though..



Cant wait till CLM……