Germany, Z3s, Autobahn, etc. (long) (archive)

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Tried talking to a few of the drivers that we saw in gas stations and at a roadiside restaurant in the Black Forest but none of them spoke any English at all. My German is not very good (kaput would be the word I would use to describe it) but I speak enough to let them know that we were also Z3 owners. They were very friendly but communication was really difficult.

We saw two unique vehicles that we knew were BMW roadsters but could not identify until this morning when I put the question out on the board. They were Z1s which I did not know existed until I saw one. Pretty cool vehicles.

We had reserved a BMW 5 series with a rental agency near Frankfurt but were given an "upgrade" to a Mercedes E240, black of course. No BMWs were available. Cursing our misfourtune of getting the MB, we departed for Lake Constance in the very south of Germany looking forward to the first experience of the autobahn.

Rude awakening! This was Wednesday afternoon and, unbeknownst to us, the eve of a religious holiday on which all shops in Germany, Austria, France & Switzerland were closed. Traffic was horrendous. The drive of about 300km or 180 miles took all afternoon. We sat in parking lot-like traffic jams for miles and when it did move it was very much like American freeways. Finally, south of Stuttgart, it opened up a little and I was able to get up to about 200kmh or about 125. The openings would only last for a minute or two and I'd have to slow down to 90-100mph for traffic.

It was a pretty frustrating experience and I was mentally composing this post to tell everyone who was thinking of renting a car for some autobahn driving not to bother.

However, our drive back to Franfurt on Friday was another matter. It was a regular work day and the roads were much emptier except for forty zillion trucks which stay in the right lane(s). We had mostly two lane freeway (each direction) with speed limits in congested areas but closer to Franfurt the road widened to 3 and then 4 lanes.

There were long streches where we were cruising at 110-115mph and could have gone faster. Shows you where my comfort zone was. There were a couple of stretches of straight road with light traffic whene I pushed the Mercedes to 225kph which on my calculator works out to 139.7 mph. The Mercedes had more to give but my wife was beginning to squirm a little.

The quintessential experience, I've heard, is to be tooling along at 125 and have a Porsche blow by like you're standing still. Never happened. Got passed many times when I was doing 110 but was usually an Audi, a Bimmer or another MB. Or a VW Golf! The Audi drivers seemed the most agressive as a group. We were never passed when doing 125 and up. Never saw a Z3 driving at any significant speed. Go figure.

The drivers are much better than American drivers, much less apt to run a light or do something stupid. And much more courteous with a couple of notable exceptions, the worst of which was some young gentleman (not my first choice of words) in a BMW who was tailgating everyone in the left lane at a distance of about 2 feet when the whole lane was full of traffic and moving at about 100mph. Idiot. My wife was a little nervous about the rapidity with which everyone changed lanes but it seemed safe to me. Remember that I live in Tucson, which is, I believe, a penal colony for the country's worst drivers.

We spent one afternoon on a 2 lane twisty road that was dominated by bikers riding that road as fast as they could. Scary. And it got even scarier when we stopped for lunch and found the place full of bikers drinking pints of strong German beer. We only saw one accident and that was not on the autobahn. And strangely, we saw virtually no police. No moving patrol cars on the autobahn at all.

There were lots of great cars everywhere but it was hard to tell what they were because of the lack of badges. Almost all of the BMWs were without numbers as were the Mercedes larger than an E. Our E was a pretty good car. Lots of creature comforts and effortless power. However, like most MBs, it lacked road feel. More point and shoot than drive.

OK, way too long. Great country, great food & wine, great time. If anyone wants to know more about any of this or our Rhine River touring, e-mail me.

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