Back to reality after 3 weeks of touring parts of the UK, Germany and Austria....strictly all boys stuff...no ancient churches or dusty museums full of old sh#t.
Here's a bit of a teaser:
Firstly it was off to the Donnington Kit Car Show, even the Aston in the pic is a replica. This was a small show with about 100 exhibitors, the big one is at Stoneleigh in March....10 times the size.
We worked our way south passing through Aston Martins original home town of Newport Pagnall. We couldn't resist a stroll thru the showroom....the plate tells the story of this beauty, number 77 of 100 built. The price $1mill pounds
We'd set up a meeting at Cadwell Park circuit for a round of the British Superbikes with a mate of my travelling buddy. This fella, Paul Smart won many rounds of international bike races in the 70's and his wife is the sister of legendary rider and commentator Barry Sheene, who unfortunately passed away nearly 10 years back. Needless to say we had all access, even the tower:
Off to Frankfurt then and a visit to Nurburgring
the Nordshleife was open for the mad public lap dash for 1 hour on the day that were there. We rented a little track preped Swift, what a hoot....flat to the floor but great fun, absolute madness with allcomers driving everything from a Testarossa (which I overtook
) to bikes, vans and grandmas Volvo...pretty much no rules but no overtaking on the inside...yeah right tell that to the guy in the Carrera 4!
Down south we headed to Stuttgart and the Porsche and Merc museums. Porsche is celebrating 50 years of the 911, so a great expose was on show.
We wheeled in and out of Austria...unbelievable scenery.
Then the main event, the European Cobra Club Meeting, Inzell, Bavaria.
These guys know to to throw a party, even an Oompah Band
There was even an Aussie flag representing attendance from yours truly
All the cars headed off to a mountain road known as the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse. A private toll road that was to be closed for an Historic Car hillclimb one the day after our visit. Here we are at the tollgates, $33 Euro a car!
Check out the view
then the "oldtimers" turned up for a recci for tomorrows race
this Bentley a cool 16 million Euro.......and they RACE it
Cobby country or what.....
then.......80 Cobras headed off to the Hilters' hideaway, the Eagles Nest. More bluddy mountains
The next day was RACEDAY!
Well really it was a regularity demo run at the Histo Cup at Salzburgring.... didn't stop the boys from having a bit of a fang tho.
The funniest thing was that most of the BIG HP showponies, many with 427's and even an Austrian guy with 9 litres, didn't know a raceline from a clothes line.
The Snake pits
After all that fun we rumbled back via Salzburg city, shaking the town to it's foundations as we bellowed through tunnels in the mountains....live sidepipes, OH YEAH
Anyway, the fun has to end sometime and we tied it all up on the last night with a Bavarian Dinner Dance, mmmmm
In short, a fab Cobbie gathering, I was made really welcome by all the crowd there. If you can get along one year you'll have a ball....even without your Cobra.
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2013 European Cobra Club Meeting
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