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Post by PG on Jul 15, 2020 15:57:34 GMT
..simply cruise at what feels safe on fairly busy roads with a family on board - usually between 90 and 110mph. It's still a weird feeling not having to worry about the speed limits (though a lot of sections are 120kph) and to have to just use your brain to set something appropriate, which feels like being treated as a grown-up... Great road trip. Soon to end if the German Greens have their way. Who clearly believe that we should all to be treated like children. Apparently, they insist on a national 120kph limit as part of ay coalition deal they make after the forthcoming election. So, ABG, anybody but the Greens then. Sadly I've never had anything bigger than a 1.6 hire car on the autobahns. But as a hire car is capable of being the fastest thing on the road, some interesting speeds were reached. But unlike you, afterwards I felt like I'd been on fast spin for too long. . |
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Post by Martin on Jul 15, 2020 16:04:41 GMT
Love a proper road trip. It's been a while (too long) since I've done one with my own car in Europe though, as just going to France doesn't really count. So that makes it 10 years this July when we drove down to Perugia (Todi to be exact) for Lindsay's brothers wedding. That was a great trip and wedding!    |
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Post by chipbutty on Jul 15, 2020 17:22:47 GMT
I took my 5.0 litre XF to Germany and had a video of a deeply satisfying lunge from 60 to 160mph (which I can no longer find) This will have to do..  I am considering going again in the F-Type and seeing what it will wind up to. |
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Post by racingteatray on Jul 16, 2020 9:34:06 GMT
The current XF does not look or feel right outside or in, to me... In particular the original XF, and my facelift version, had a very sporty looking rear end (always a good thing) for a saloon, I always thought the rear window and boot are quite Aston-like and a triumph for a big saloon with a big boot. It gets a great reception here in Bavaria anyway, lots of comment, though that may be as they don't typically spec the "M Sport" equivalent spec on all the dross in Europe like we do at home, they let a 320d look honest, so proper performance models stand out more. There also seems to be more praise than "why do you need that much" about power here. The drive down went well - we left Newbury about 6pm Monday night and got to a town near Nurnberg about 0630 local time, so less than 12 hours door to door which seemed good to me! I drove most of it, I had a 2.5 hour rest for the first German section and then took over about 0430 for the last two hours as it got light, when the roadworks stopped and had a super drive for the rest. I try not to drive like a knob and et v maxes everywhere, but simply cruise at what feels safe on fairly busy roads with a family on board - usually between 90 and 110mph. It's still a weird feeling not having to worry about the speed limits (though a lot of sections are 120kph) and to have to just use your brain to set something appropriate, which feels like being treated as a grown-up. Obviously some big accelerations are "required" when the path clears and a BMW or (increasingly often) random VAG product is weaving in the boot. And some lunges up to 120/130 or so, its incredible how rapidly it still accelerates even on a part throttle at those speeds... This is the first time I've been this far south in Germany with the summer tyres on, and the car is super stable and grippy, with very strong brakes, which can be handy. Congrats on the great escape! Germany is great. Driving from Baden Baden to Basel just before Christmas in the middle lane of the autobahn, a Porsche shot past and so my wife asked whether, since it was unlimited, we could perhaps go a bit faster to ensure we could get to Milan in time for dinner. She was very startled to discover we were actually already going at 200kph. In the GC in its natural habitat of smooth German blacktop, she simply hadn't realised our speed. |
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Post by PG on Jul 16, 2020 19:37:03 GMT
Congrats on the great escape! Germany is great. Driving from Baden Baden to Basel just before Christmas in the middle lane of the autobahn, a Porsche shot past and so my wife asked whether, since it was unlimited, we could perhaps go a bit faster to ensure we could get to Milan in time for dinner. She was very startled to discover we were actually already going at 200kph. In the GC in its natural habitat of smooth German blacktop, she simply hadn't realised our speed.So we you told to go even faster or "oh my god slow down" at that point?  |
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Post by Big Blue on Jul 17, 2020 11:04:20 GMT
I challenge anyone that drives to Germany and crosses the border at Aachen NOT to mash their right foot into the carpet as soon as the see the white circle with the four lines  Best ever was my mum having visitors from the US after moving to Germany from New Jersey. I joked that they'd be sitting at 200kph on the way back from the airport (a speed at which all Americans know you will die at on the highway) and be passed as if stationary by a 911 and it actually happened. German standards took a dive in the '90s after reunification I seem to recall but I've had some epic autobahn speedfests over the years (before W2.1). |
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Post by chipbutty on Jul 17, 2020 11:20:41 GMT
More than a few Trabies (and their unfortunate occupants) were vaporised when they wandered into the path of an S-Class at full tilt
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2020 12:24:26 GMT
I thought the Trabbie would be worse off than the video showed.
I did hear that the best way to double the value of a Trabbie was to put a litre of fuel in it.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jul 17, 2020 12:33:15 GMT
^ That was at 10mph.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2020 12:38:59 GMT
From the descriptions of the time I fully expected a walking speed impact to result in rust and fibre reinforced plastic confetti and a few components scattered about.
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Post by racingteatray on Jul 19, 2020 9:33:18 GMT
Congrats on the great escape! Germany is great. Driving from Baden Baden to Basel just before Christmas in the middle lane of the autobahn, a Porsche shot past and so my wife asked whether, since it was unlimited, we could perhaps go a bit faster to ensure we could get to Milan in time for dinner. She was very startled to discover we were actually already going at 200kph. In the GC in its natural habitat of smooth German blacktop, she simply hadn't realised our speed.So we you told to go even faster or "oh my god slow down" at that point? No it was more along the lines of "Really? Oh ok. Don't go any faster". She really was keen to get to dinner on time! Fastest I've ever driven on the autobahn was in an uncle's W140 500SE over 20 yrs ago. Fastest I've ever driven any car on my own on the autobahn was the GTA, which I got to 239kph, which I have memorialised in a photo somewhere (not of the speedo obviously - it showed up in the journey stats on my Garmin satnav. |
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Post by alf on Jul 20, 2020 13:22:21 GMT
We had a good drive back on Saturday - from Nuremberg all thge way up to not long before Dusseldorf (where we saw friends) it is beautiful rolling hill country. Not the place for massive speed, 110 on the cruise saw only one or two people overtake me the whole way, it is always bendy and hilly. The standard of driving in Germany is so much higher, they almost always see you coming and clear the decks. The roads are very different - many motorway exits are a very sharp bend and the roads themselves not marked nearly as well as motorways here (especially at night) - you need to be on top of your game compared with here.
On the last bit before Belgium I briefly wound it up to 150mph- still accelerating hard on a throttle opening way less than half, its astonishing how it keeps going. In all other cars I have driven you can start to feel the weight of air pressure slowing the car. The GTA seemed impressively slippery and kept going, I saw 150 indicated in that once, but in the XFR it feels so effortless and is still pulling harder than the average car would when booted away from the lights. Impressive!
As was the 35.9MPG done for the UK part, when I came through the runnel at midnight and had 123 miles range and 121 miles to drive. Got home with 27 miles range showing.... For major routes, it is truly the car that can do it all!
The Germans flipping love it as well, weirdly - it does get some comment here when parking up, especially when it is clean (it did on Saturday after I had cleaned it to within an inch of its life), but over there it gets comments everywhere, all good!
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Post by PG on Jul 20, 2020 14:25:44 GMT
The Germans flipping love it as well, weirdly - it does get some comment here when parking up, especially when it is clean (it did on Saturday after I had cleaned it to within an inch of its life), but over there it gets comments everywhere, all good! Clearly, even the German think that their home grown cars are all boring and / or ugly now. |
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Post by Tim on Jul 20, 2020 15:04:52 GMT
I managed to get to 162kp/h in a high roof, long wheelbase Citroen Relay van.
The vans across there must have bigger engines though, we were overtaken countless times by all sorts of them like we were doing 20.
The main highlight of the go-faster mob though was a 911 GT3 (or 3 RS, or GT2, I couldn't tell) which came past at great speed at high revs.
It made a change from the high speed VW Group estates.
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Post by racingteatray on Jul 21, 2020 8:13:30 GMT
In all other cars I have driven you can start to feel the weight of air pressure slowing the car. The GTA seemed impressively slippery and kept going, I saw 150 indicated in that once, but in the XFR it feels so effortless and is still pulling harder than the average car would when booted away from the lights. Impressive! In my GTA, I recall it starting to feel very light and nervous over 130mph, like it really hadn't been designed with that sort of speed in mind. Rather unnerving By contrast, I recall my mid-1980s-designed Z1 feeling absolutely glued to the road at similar speeds (albeit that a Z1 has very clever underbody aerodynamics). Sounds like you had a good trip though. I get quite a few comments on my car in Italy. Not so much for the 4GC, which isn't especially unusual in Italy although they tend not to be MSports. More the 40i bit - here pretty much every other one is 2.0 diesel. Largely because diesel is quite a bit cheaper than petrol in Italy, and here there is a super-tax on cars which have over 250bhp. In fact I've only seen one other 40i variant so far - a 340i Touring and that was on Swiss plates. |
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Post by alf on Jul 24, 2020 8:24:57 GMT
Incidentally fuel varied from a fair bit more than here, to shockingly expensive, while I was away.... Not often we can say that it's cheaper here!
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Post by racingteatray on Jul 25, 2020 23:29:24 GMT
Cheapest I can get unleaded here in Italy is €1.30. On the motorway it can be €1.60.
My last fill in the UK was £1.11
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Post by PG on Sept 7, 2020 16:37:21 GMT
The XFR lives! We went down to the Cotswolds to see friends and visit Hidcote NT gardens (bookings only) and then lunch in a country pub. Lovely two hour trip each way in the XFR. Really nice to get it back into use.
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Post by ChrisM on Sept 7, 2020 16:46:54 GMT
Cheapest I can get unleaded here in Italy is €1.30. On the motorway it can be €1.60. My last fill in the UK was £1.11 Last week in Berlin I noted that petrol/diesel was around 1 Euro per litre at most of the filling stations I saw within the city |
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Post by racingteatray on Sept 7, 2020 17:16:51 GMT
Lucky Chermans!
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Post by Roadrunner on Sept 7, 2020 20:10:13 GMT
The XFR lives! We went down to the Cotswolds to see friends and visit Hidcote NT gardens (bookings only) and then lunch in a country pub. Lovely two hour trip each way in the XFR. Really nice to get it back into use. You could walk to Hidcote from our house. Which pub did you go to? |
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Post by PG on Sept 8, 2020 7:21:40 GMT
You could walk to Hidcote from our house. Which pub did you go to? The Howard Arms, Ilmington. Nice Sunday roast and a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord in the garden there. |
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Post by Roadrunner on Sept 8, 2020 7:52:57 GMT
You could walk to Hidcote from our house. Which pub did you go to? The Howard Arms, Ilmington. Nice Sunday roast and a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord in the garden there. Excellent choice. The Ebrington Arms in Ebrington is also well worth a look if you come over this way again. |
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Post by Tim on Sept 8, 2020 9:01:40 GMT
Some friends of ours are walking the Cotswold Way from next Saturday. Apparently it's quite hilly down there?
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