Photo a day - Lagonda

This picture was taken at the FIVA World Rally (Rome) in September 2009. If you look closely, you can see us in the photo.

No time - photo a day series begins

We're getting ready to depart Rome and are finding less time to do things other than sort and pack belongings, so I've pre-posted a photo a day for the next little while. Hopefully this will hold over our faithful two, possibly as many as five, readers until we have time and internet access again.

The photo for today was taken at the Piero Taruffi Car Museum (in the town of Bagnoregio) in August 2009. As you might guess, it's a 1957 Spatz. Whaddaya mean, you never heard of it?

Road trip north, part 13

Hello again, our two faithful readers! We took a hiatus from blogging, but now we're back. We have a lot to report since our road trip north, but we didn't finish talking about that yet. So here is installment number thirteen.

We couldn't leave Germany back in May without visiting the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart. This place provided an impressive look back at automotive history with an emphasis on Mercedes Benz and its predecessor companies.

Here's one of the earliest internal combustion engine vehicles, a Daimler motorcycle.



The internal path of the museum reminded me of those in the Guggenheim and the Hirshhorn -- a spiral walkway. In this case you take the elevator to the top floor and wind your way down a chronological display.



Mercedes makes all kinds of vehicles, not just passenger cars. Tractor trailers, for example:



Buses:



Race cars, too:



Mercedes was far ahead of its time in automotive safety.



Not only did the museum highlight the company's many accomplishments, it did not omit the most shameful episode in its corporate history. There was a display (which unfortunately we didn't photograph) explaining that Daimler-Benz factories were manned by forced laborers from concentration camps during World War II. It wasn't until 1988 that the company paid $12 million in reparations to the surviving laborers and their families.

It's amazing how much we learn from museum visits.

Road trip north, part 12

Munich: to some, it's the land of beer. To others, it's the home of the BMW museum and factory tour! Tip for visitors: try to book ahead for the tour in English. Otherwise you end up on the German tour and have no idea what the guide is saying. In our case, the tour guide wouldn't even give us the earphones so we didn't even get to try to hear what was said. Still, you can see factory workers and robots putting together the various parts of the cars and pretty much figure out what's going on.

No photos are allowed on the factory tour, alas, but we did take some in the museum. A classic motorcycle:



There were some real beauties on display.



What lines! Smooooooth.



And oh, yeah, we looked at the town as well. Here's the Town Hall (Neues Rathaus).



We were lucky to catch some great chamber music on the street. Ever seen buskers with a piano before? Not exactly the usual instrument of choice of street musicians.



Here in Bavaria and also in the Tyrol (Austria and parts of northern Italy), we noticed many shops that sell traditional clothing, like lederhosen, caps with a jaunty feather, and sort of peasant girl/milkmaid outfits. In Munich, non-traditional colors are available, as shown below.

Cronoscalata della Castellana

Italy's got Dan's kinda people. We can tell because they have such events as the Cronoscalata della Castellana, an uphill race of vintage cars in Umbria.

The cars warmed up by zooming up a stretch of road one after the other. There were various makes and models from different countries, but Fiat was well represented.

When the drivers took a break, we could get an up-close look at their rides.

The actual race was against the clock, each car being timed separately rather than driving side by side.

They were loud and fast!

Antique cars in South Africa

In Ghana, one rarely sees a car older than 15 years old. Ghanaians think old cars are hilarious and can't understand why anyone would want to have one. In terms of antique cars, Ghana is a wasteland.

South Africa, however, is a place where classic automobiles are appreciated. One day, while visiting the historic town of Graaff-Reinet, we noticed a gathering of people and went to see what it was about. Why, it was the Bentley Club, of course, taking their 1920s-era Bentleys out for a spin.



All of the Bentleys had badges reading "Tour of South Africa 2007" on their grills or front bumpers. Each badge noted the owner's country of origin. There were cars there from the US, Australia, and England as well as South Africa. So presumably these drivers had to ship their giant vehicles over here for this motor tour. Wonder how much that costs.



In the town of Uitenhage, we visited the Volkswagen Museum. It's attached to a VW plant where they have been manufacturing VWs for decades. This plant started out making Studebakers.



The museum is pretty impressive and has some flashy displays as well as mint-condition old VWs, such as the shiny Beetle above.



We saw this old Benz at a refurbished old-timey service station in Thomas River.