Technobabble – A Practical Guide to the Nurburgring

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Nurburgring orange day

 Imagine the embarassment when you pull into the ring and someone else drove the exact same GT-3 RS. 

 

Nurburgring Smart Roadster

I drove a Smart Roadster once. It was a fun little car, a surprisingly effective packaging exercise, and an enormous disappointment dynamically. So close, guys, so close… 

 

Nurburgring 12

 When you have a race car, you start noticing different things. If I didn’t race, i’d be looking at the GT-R. Since I do, I’m fascinated with the trailer. Almost all trailers in Germany run the wheels under the deck rather than beside them. This makes the trailers narrower and easy to maneuver in small streets, and also allows you to open the doors when loading and unloading the car. I’m seriously jealous. 

Nurburgring Clio Sport Cup

 Imagine if the SHOgun was built by real engineers at a real factory instead of a couple of madmen in Pomona, CA. This is what you’d get. The big-V6-in-the-back-of -a-small-shitbox concept is exactly the same, the execution is, well, only slightly better, really. By all accounts the handling is still diabolical.

 

Nurburgring dirt on a Cayanne!

 Oh. My. God. Dirt on an SUV. Dirt on a Porsche SUV!

 

Nurburgring 10

 Nowhere in America will you find a trailer so perfectly suited to hauling a Civic. 

 

Nurburgring 10

 And, sadly, nowhere in America would you ever find the 195/55R10 trailer tires this fantastically compact design requires.

 

Nurburgring Cougar

“What do you want to take to the Nurburgring this week, honey?”

“I dunno, let’s take the XR-7. The velour feels good on my hemorrhoids.”

 

Nurburgring sweet trailer

 Wheels outside the deck, like ours, but check out the approach angle on those ramps. Sweet!

 

Nurburgring Opel

This badass Opel was pure David Hasselhoff in its German awesomeness. This was no poseur, though. It had what looked like a very built motor and a sequential dog box. 

 

Nurburgring XR4Ti. well, not really...

Merkewr? MareKOOr? Mercury? Fuck you guys! Ford Sierra RS. Why the hell was Ford too scared to put their name on this thing in the U.S.?

 

Nurburgring GT3 times 8

 When driving your GT3 to the track is just too much effort…

 

Nurburgring Pistenklause

 If you go to the ‘ring, you must go to the Pistenklause. Owned by Sabine Schmidt’s family, it is THE place where all the cool kids go. Even Kojima went there…

 

Nurburgring DB5

 James Bond used to be cool.

I saw this car again, the next day, running the full track on a private track day. On a normal day, cars enter and exit about 3/4 of the way down the straight. On private days, they run the full straight. We just happened to stop by and peek over he fence at the end of the straight in time to see this thing punching a hole through the air at full grunt. Awesome.

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