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Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:45 AM

It was the Oldtimer GP at the Nurburgring last weekend, and a few of us drove down for a few days of Eifel mountain road blatts, classic racing, Weissbier and Sauerkraut.

Rich and Stephen - in the Sepia Reaper - and Pete and Ian - in their Orange Peril - left from the UK on Thursday morning:






And I drove my green RS rep from my folks' place on the West coast of France, 650 miles East, thru Belgium and into Germany..:




...Stopping off at various motorsport landmarks on the way. All in one day I saw:


Hotel De France. Le Mans 24 Hrs lodgings of choice for all the big race teams in the 60s and 70s:




Autodrome De Linas-Montlhery, South of Paris:




Reims - Gueux, in the Champagne region of East France:




And our little convoy finally met up on Thursday afternoon, at a wet and rainy Spa Francorchamps in Belgium...:







...Before pressing on for the final 80 miles into Germany and to our lakeside campsite in the beautiful Eifel mountains:






Although a few of us had been to the 'ring before, this was our first Oldtimer GP, and we decided the best way to celebrate arriving was to get stuck in to some Weissbier:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:46 AM

Anyway, that's enough early 911 coverage. After all, this is a 914 forum

So let me introduce one of our party, Stephen.

He owns an imported from Texas 914, in light ivory, which he is planning to convert to a GT rep, with 3.0 911 engine on PMOs.

And me: I own an imported from Texas 914, in light ivory, which I too am planning to convert to a GT styled car, on a 3.0 911 engine on Webers...

Although we had arrived in Germany on Thursday to drizzly weather, Friday dawned bright and sunny.

Which was just perfect for Stephen to test drive my 911 over the 20 miles of fantastic sweeping, undulating roads that separated the campsite from the Nurburgring GP circuit:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:46 AM

The obviously awesome location aside, the event itself is brilliant.

If any of you are lucky enough to have been to Le Mans Classic and teh Spa 6 hours historic events, the Oldtimer is somewhere half way between the two.

Like LMC it is pretty big (but not as crowded as LMC), lots of variety of marques represented, a bit corporate, modern spectator comforts.

And like Spa 6 Hours there is very close racing (with no big gaps between races like at LMC), more relaxed atmosphere than LMC, more open access to the cars and drivers in the paddocks, brilliant track for spectating.


But what sets it apart from the other european classic race weekend is the representation of Porsche as a marque.
It's almost like the Nurburgring is Porsche's spiritual home. Thousands and thousands of P-cars.

If you like 911s, this is clearly the place to be. We all agreed that we had never seen so many 911s in one place before...
If that is your bag, we posted scads of 911 shots over on DDK, and you can go soak them up over there: http://www.ddk-online.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=57708

But this is the 914 forum, and that is what Stephen and I were most interested in, so here's a filtered view...:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:47 AM

914s were in short supply, despite orginal volume of production data...

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:47 AM

This GT was pretty tasty. Sadly not racing this weekend though:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:48 AM

This GT rep was immaculate. Result of a 7 year restoration.








Interesting, flat undertray custom fabricated:



3 litre on Webers:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:48 AM

This was the only 914 we actually saw in motion on the open road!

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:48 AM

Sticking with mid-engined Porsches, I know we all appreciate these...

We spotted 2 904s at the event.

This one was not racing, and we saw it out driving home on the public road on Saturday 8) :










The banded rims it was wearing didn't look too neat / safe to our eyes!

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:49 AM

This one on the other hand was racing:





This is one of the guys running the race team fielding this 904, the Coca-Cola 935, the white RSR with an arrow on its bonnet etc.

He's an ex Porsche factory rally co-driver, who kept us entertained for ages with stories from back in the day.

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:49 AM

And avoiding 911 content again, how about Porsche's other models?

This year marks 40 years of the Porsche transaxle cars. Rather than lots of shots of 924s, 944s, 928s, etc....

We thought this car summed up Porsche's best effort in this category:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 07:50 AM

And going a long way back in time, how about this. A factory built rep of a Type 64.





It might be a special museum piece, but Walter Rohrl had still somehow been allowed in there and scrawled his autograph on the glovebox lid!

Posted by: Mueller Aug 18 2016, 07:52 AM

BEST POST of the day!

thank you!

Great pics and write-up.

Posted by: Reverend Troublemaker Aug 18 2016, 08:16 AM

James - Thank you...appreciate any additional pictures you have of that GT!

Tony

Posted by: Frankvw Aug 18 2016, 08:22 AM

nice pictures (and cars) and it looks like you guys had serious fun. This is a real cool post. Thanks.
(can I come with you guys next time ? :-))

Posted by: Millerwelds Aug 18 2016, 09:29 AM

Thanks for sharing

Posted by: 396 Aug 18 2016, 10:00 AM

QUOTE(Mueller @ Aug 18 2016, 06:52 AM)

Posted by: Dion Aug 18 2016, 10:40 AM

Beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Posted by: Ferg Aug 18 2016, 11:16 AM

Thanks for sharing!

Posted by: SixerJ Aug 18 2016, 12:28 PM

QUOTE(Frankvw @ Aug 18 2016, 03:22 PM)

Posted by: SirAndy Aug 18 2016, 01:00 PM

Posted by: porbmw Aug 18 2016, 01:02 PM

You guys are having WAY too much fun
Very jealous, in a good way.
Thanks for sharing...
And very! nice early 11s!

Posted by: Tom_T Aug 18 2016, 01:21 PM

Very cool James!

.... or as we used to say in Surf City back in the day - Bitchen!

Thanx for sharing .... even the 911 pix too!

Cheers Mate!
Tom
///////

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:30 PM

Thanks for the feedback guys, glad you like the trip, it's pleasure to share.

Since the 911s were not disapproved of, here are a selection of those...

There were short hoods:









If we had a euro for every car we saw with this guy's autograph on it...

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:30 PM

There were long hoods:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:31 PM

There were hot rods with interesting touches:












And cars that were not sure which camp they fitted into:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:32 PM

There were race 911s too:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:32 PM

Of course, it wasn't all Porsche.

There were BMWs:






Mercedes (ostrich leather, doncha know):






Yes, Mercedes, kinda..








Erm... not 100% sure what we are looking at here!

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:33 PM

Pantera:





This one won the big 70s sports car race on Saturday evening, beating all the 935s, M1s etc:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:33 PM

There were rally cars:











Loved this R5:

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:35 PM

And of course there was racing. Of all classes.

Please excuse quality of the shots... I started on the beers around the same time we started watching the track action :drunken:

What I can say though is that I was very pleasntly surprised at how good the views are here on the GP circuit for spectators. Fab place to visit.

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 18 2016, 01:35 PM

Cars and racing is all well and good, but it is the company that makes trips like this special.

Posted by: mlindner Aug 18 2016, 01:39 PM

Thanks James, great shots. Did you get to drive the Ring. Best, Mark

Posted by: jrblackbox Aug 18 2016, 01:43 PM

Great pics from the homeland! Thanks for sharing!!

Posted by: Vapor_locked Aug 18 2016, 02:23 PM

Great pics, and looks like an incredible journey & experience! thank you for sharing with us!

Just an FYI, the yellow & black De Tomaso is actually a mangusta - the predecessor of the pantera.

Posted by: Shadowfax Aug 18 2016, 02:28 PM

Terrific photos. Thank you for sharing. Next time you are in the States, please swing by and photograph my cars

Posted by: Reverend Troublemaker Aug 18 2016, 02:30 PM

Absolutely stunning. Here is a video from the event you attended as well...great sounds!

Tony


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOa3_cWvESQ


From Last Year - Lots of Porsche Clips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS7IM0W1fZE

Posted by: krazykonrad Aug 19 2016, 09:00 AM

Thanks for the post!

Posted by: 2mAn Aug 19 2016, 09:59 AM

Bucket level stuff here... I love everything you posted. Thanks for sharing

Posted by: 23e Heure Aug 19 2016, 10:41 AM

I'm flattered by all the positive feedback: thanks guys.

Since so many of you enjoyed this one so much, I'm tempted to post a thread about our other trip this summer: that one was to Sicily to participate in the Giro Di Sicilia.

Interested? It will be a very long thread...

(I don't want to come off as a big fat show off, but am happy to share the adventures if there is interest)

Posted by: Vapor_locked Aug 19 2016, 12:51 PM

QUOTE(23e Heure @ Aug 19 2016, 11:41 AM)