Visit to Mercedes factory and museum!

[pentoman]

Didn't know where to stick this so stuck it here...
Thought you guys over the pond might want to see my story of a journey to Stuttgart (Mercedes HQ) to see their museum and do a factory tour. Feel free to ask questions!
The text is 190-specific since I have 190s and originally posted it on the UK 190 forum.
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I got a little bored recently, so decided to go somewhere and see something. Mercedes museum was a basic (and rather unimaginative) choice - not the one in Sussex, but the one in Stuttgart, Germany.
When we planned to go the flights were looking too expensive, so my friend insisted on driving. Now, people will tell you Germany is not very far, but I can promise that Stuttgart, in the South West, is. Even German people found it hilarious we drove so far for so short a stay.


With practicality, safety, comfort and economy being a priority, a 190 was not quite the most sensible option. Nor was my friend's 17mpg road rally homologation special although he did try to convince me. No, instead we borrowed what happened to come along - a brand new, just delivered, Astra Sporthatch 1.6 SXi. Okay so you haven't got excited by this, but we both were very happy with the vehicle chosen. It fulfils the requirements and required four full tanks of fuel only for the whole thing. It's going to get an interesting running in...

Day 1
We miss the ferry. Finally on the road in France at 4PM, we expect to make Stuttgart in 6 hours (the AA reckon on 6 hrs 28 mins), and keep at about 80 mph. After approximately 4 hours of driving, well into Belgium, I point out we are less than a third of the way there, and the distance to travel actually dawns on us. When it is night, my friend insists on stopping off at the Nurburgring for the night, as apparently he knows somebody called Eddy with a hotel. I agree it would be appropriate to rest there, though point out the stupidity of going back the way we came to get there. We near the track and the road is soon covered in snow, with the last 8 kms taking half an hour at about 15mph. It would appear the ring is in the mountains and doesn't really operate in the winter - later some Germans will tell us it is illegal to drive there at this time without winter tyres. So we arrive at 10PM and awake Eddy, who has no idea who my friend is, and does not remember ever meeting him! Fortunately he rents us a room anyway. It has very bad adult movies. You can see the track from the window.



There it is! The nurburgring! It's obvious no cars will be running round the track in the snow so we head off first thing. A bunch of other UK registered cars are at the hotel so it's not just us.


Eddy has a 997 GT3 RS...

Day 2

Even with the derestricted autobahn, where we only occasionally go over 100, we hit Stuttgart at 2PM. This leaves half a day to see things. We realise that to make it back in time for our return ferry we will have to leave tomorrow. A 3 day trip has turned into a 1 day trip! We go straight to the Mercedes museum.



The museum car park contains the CLS show/concept car

Walking downstairs to the entrance, the very first thing I see is...


Which you can't complain about.

This area is a showroom including new and used Mercedes (those 190s are used believe it or not).






We enter the museum and it has a lot of nice cars. There's some buses which I find interesting, a garbage truck, a handful of celebrity cars, and even racing trucks. No roadgoing Evo II, or SLR however.











Celebrity cars:

This is ringo starr's AMG - really dodgy bodywork, must have been smashed or something


The popemobile, and people should recognize the one of the left.....


A famous Californian Governor's car!!




This is a taxi from Portugal that did approximately 1.2 million miles


The one in the middle you might recognize.... it managed a constant 155mph for over 10,000 miles.


The second part of the trip will be put up later.