You Just Gotta Love It

In safe secure comfort, hurtling along the autobahn at 279 kilometers per hour, we are heading south from Munich. Both Jerry’s plan and mine arrived early, we found our luggage and each other quickly, and headed out.

As the speed indicator bounced between 265 and 280 kph, the waitress walked through the car with our coffees. Oh, did I forget to mention we were on the ICE Inter City Express, the high speed train that runs all over Germany? Run by the German federal government, the trains are quiet, comfortable, and spacious. And they go 175 miles per hour.

The ride from Frankfurt to Stuttgart took just one hour 12 minutes to cover a distance that would have taken us four hours to gather the rental car and drive. From the Stuttgart Hauptbanhof main station, another 20 minutes in a taxi got us to Porsche’s amazing new museum where our host, Dieter Landenberger, Porsche historian, director of Archives, and co-director of the museum, was waiting for us.

Dieter led on us a quick introductory tour of the museum (don’t worry; I promise photos will follow). It is a photographer’s dream, whether the shooter likes cars or architecture or people-watching.

Just before the Museum closed at 6 p.m., Dieter walked us two blocks to Porsche Werk I, the oldest building of the Porsche factory complex, to pick up the new 2011 Cayenne he had arranged for us to use the the near-month we are here. (Yes, a picture is coming—but we’re going to wait to put it somewhere interesting!)

Tomorrow, Day 3, we begin interviews, starting with Peter Falk, head of Porsche racing from 1965 through the 1980s. Next is Ed Peter, who was export sales manager at Porsche from the early 1970s till early 1993. He was responsible for “encouraging” many dealers throughout North America and other countries to race Porsches and to support their customers. The final interview is with Valentin Schaeffer, who tamed the turbochargers and made Porsche’s turbo racers indomitable.

But before that is dinner in Dieter’s favorite Turkish restaurant two blocks from the factory, called Diyar.

Stay tuned.