Europe Trip – Professional Motorsports World Expo

Britta and I (Adam) just returned from a trip to Europe. While generally having a good relaxing time, there were some opportunities to geek out on fun automotive type stuff. Most of this post will be about our visit to the opening day of the Professional Motorsports World Expo in Cologne Germany. At the end I’ll throw in a few observations about Europe and cars. In addition I’m adding a link to a gallery of photos to share.

I was looking forward to the PMW Expo because Toyota Motorsports Gmbh was supposed to debut their GT86 R3 rally car. Well, Rally GB, the final round of WRC was happening up in Wales, and that’s where the cars were. I did get a look at the mock-up. Oh well.

At the show I tried to see everything, but was paying attention to transmissions and electronics, which are items that Hatches could benefit from. Other highlights were complete engines sitting on stands, including Audi LMPs, Nissan’s 3cyl, old F1 engines, and some 4cyl race motors too.

After the show, and some days in Belgium, we took a quick trip over to the Nurburg Ring to do some laps. I was hoping to rent a Toyota GT86, but due to a lack of research, the RSR company didn’t have them available (another company did). We did 4 laps in a Clio RS200, which was a blast. Very much like a rally stage, with blind corners, and surprisingly slick.

Below is the gallery – and below that are my final thoughts

Some final thoughts –

• Electric power steering in the VW Polo rental was bad.
• Electric throttle and small displacement engines almost resulted in some roundabout disasters.
• Lane discipline is amazing over there.
• The Maximum speed alloud in Iceland is 100km/h which is a shame.
• The Citroen C4 1.6td taught me to short shift.