2008 Wild Viking Festival

Some random snapshots I took yesterday in Wild Viking Festival bike show around the Casino of Hanko.






















Cylinder heads and valve covers looked familiar but turned out to be little bit of coldwar era industrial espionage.

Misc Shots: Wolfsburg - Stockholm

"Audi syö latua" :) Last stop for couple of days in Stockholm, 5800 kilometres and one million dead insects later.



Last summer we did 2200 km Chimay/Camberg tour with 4 aircooled cars and took a ferry from Helsinki to Rostock, Germany. That ferry is bit pain in the ass as it is boring as hell, it takes 24 hours leaving Helsinki at evening and arriving to Rostock at following evening, which means immediate check-in to hotel or driving in night through Estern Germany.

This time I didn't have to worry so much with the car etc so it made more sense to take the ferry to Sweden and then drive though Sweden, Denmark and Northern Germany. On a distance to Hamburg this equates 1000 km more driving from Stockholm than from Rostock. No problem in a modern car.

So if I take that 1000 km off that it takes to get to the "play grounds" from up North, then the two weeks consisted of driving around 4000 kilometres in Germany, Belgium, France and Switzerland.


And overtaking manouvre of the year award goes to.. Well, it took almost a year.


Sweet home Nordic!


One more shot from Autostadt; they're taught how to drive in "stau" at very early age :)


After first initial "WTF, this chauvinistic shit isn't real" reaction I realized, as these reserved spaces were first slots after the hotel reception doors, that this must be a security measure so that the female drivers can feel safer when parking during the night. Got to admit it was bit funny to see one elderly lady parking her Opel over the line dividing two "female only" parking spots :)

Autostadt

Smile? Me? Yeah, right.. While I liked the Mercedes Museum and the old Volkswagen Museum, this automotive Disney Land wasn't for me.

I love Beetles and Buses and Ghias etc due to their styling, awkward mechanics like the air-cooled engine, Cal Look and Resto Cal etc. I'm not into modern cars no matter what the brand is (except perhaps Porsche) and Volkswagen or Audi today are like German Toyota, so not really interesting. As Volkswagen factory very rarely backed motor sport it lacks the same racing heritage Porsche and Mercedes may have (Auto-Union did but that was pre-war stuff and before the merger anyway). And the other brands the corporation had more recently acquired, I don't know.. I didn't simply find enough interesting stuff per acre (yeah, it's large) in AutoStadt.

Autostadt is a happy place, you can stay at nice Carlton-Ritz hotel, spend a nice day in the theme park (or at the old museum), have a nice meal or coffee and it hides the Wolfsburg City, which isn't attractive like many of the other German cities are. No need to go out to the City when all you need to your visit is nicely tucked in same area (bit like the Casinos in Las Vegas).

Nicest place to visit in Autostadt was the ZeitHaus displaying vintage cars and automotive milestones from various brands. Also some of the most presentable vintage Volkswagens had been moved there from the old museum.

Stiftung AutoMuseum Volkswagen

Actually my first time in Volkswagen Museum in Wolfsburg. No surprises here since the museum has been around for long time, featured in all magazines etc. Quite many of the cars have incorrect parts (eg. German law had required indicators instead of semaphores at some point) for that particular model year or aren't even restored, but still I liked the place a lot. It looked and felt like a Museum for Volkswagen should feel like.


Yeah to the left we go, not so keen on following the evolution of Golf.


Zwitter dash.






The Rometsch Taxi.


The Hebmuller Police car.


Inca Red '58 Cabriolet.


Split 'Vert is always a Split 'Vert.


The '38 Cabriolet.




Theo Decker engine.






The Stoll Coupe.


Lawrence Rometsch.


Utility vehicle built for 3rd world countries, looks awfully like Teijo but maybe then Kekkoslovakia in the 70's was still 3rd world? :)




The Kamei Split that I remember seeing in 1999 Bad Camberg.

Misc Shots: Stuttgart - Wolfsburg

Mahle buildings in Stuttgart.




Spotted also other Finnish Volkswagen guys on the way.


The 5 hour drive including stops wasn't the most relaxing ones I had. The open speed roads are quite tiresome to drive as you have be so alert and watch the rear-view mirror as much as windscreen due to the difference in speeds around you.


I spent some time in trying to duplicate the "history book" shot of the factory with the 4 smokestacks and the company logo. Didn't succeed but the train transporting modern fresh out of production line Volkswagens is bonus.


Never seen so many rabbits in my life as in every green patch in Wolfsburg.


Found this while browsing local newspaper at the hotel; little something for my Swedish speaking friends, little sip of J.P. Chenet can turn you into Super Knuller?