There is a list of items that basically every gear head in the world wants to accomplish. Our own little petrolhead bucket list. Drive on the Nurburgring, break 200 mph, drive an F1 car. One of those items is to max out a car on the German autobahn. Thanks to a few unfortunate events, and a few insurance hassles, I managed to find myself behind the wheel of a 500 horsepower muscle car with derestricted autobahn sitting out in front of the windshield. The car in question was the AnastasiaDate Camaro we had on this year’s Gumball 3000.
I wasn’t even supposed to drive that day. I was scheduled to be part of the team that was piloting the red AsianDate Camaro, but after a hard morning coupled with a failing headgasket the red Camaro was officially labeled as dead. Most of the team had carried on without us, so it was just the two Camaros and the two follow SUVs sitting in a parking lot trying to formulate a plan. It was decided that someone from the PR team would stay with the red car while the wrecker was on its way, and that we would shuffle everyone else into the second SUV and the yellow Camaro so that we could carry on through Germany.
This is where fortune shined on me.
I am not exactly a large man, but when you are trying to decide who gets the middle seat in the back of a Volvo and the choices are a 180 pound male journalist or a Japanese model, it was easy to see why I got vetoed out of the SUV. I was also the only journalist in the immediate area that was cleared on the insurance. That meant I was headed for the AnastasiaDate Camaro. It also meant some unscheduled drive time for me as well. I am never going to say “no” to more time behind the wheel. What followed was one of the best driving days of my life.
My co-pilot was Anthony, the US Marketing Director for AD, and he took first driving duties. He piloted us through the boring first section of Germany and at up most of the afternoon. When we stopped for fuel we were way behind schedule, the sun was setting, and we had to make up time. As I hopped in the driver’s seat and put on my sunglasses, the sky was on fire. I pointed the Camaro at the highway and away we went. Since I had no idea where we were going, our follow SUV took the lead. Then came the derestricted signs. My lead car immediately planted the accelerator and rocketed off. I dropped a cog on the Camaro’s four-speed manual transmission and began to chase. The car had no working speedometer, so I was at the mercy of the tachometer to try and judge my speed. We knew that around 2400 rpm in fourth was 75 mph. As I headed north of 4500 rpm, the front end of the car started to go light and I was gaining ground against the lead Volvo quickly.
What followed over the next two hours or so was a fun little game of cat and mouse where I would catch the Volvo and then back off to give chase a gain a few miles later. As the rolling hills of Germany blasted past the window, the sun continued its slow climb towards the horizon. The sky became vivid and practically exploded with color. I was a giant American middle finger to the boring and staid luxury brands that called the country home. I may as well have been John Wayne, riding through Berlin on a tank with strippers dancing on top for as ostentatious as I looked. That V8 bark announcing my presence for miles, the peaceful German countryside was mine for the conquering. It was glorious in the most visceral ways possible.
The derestricted section of autobahn came to an end, and the gas tank was running dry so we decided to stop for some food, and to swap drivers again. A quick talk with the Volvo driver revealed the car had a limited top speed of 220 kph. Stateside, that number equals about 140. That put my speed north of 150, in a 45 year old muscle car, with stock brakes and steering. Technically the car is capable of much faster speed, the 383 racing V8 under the hood will rev to more than eight grand, but with aero being our biggest limiting factor, I am not sure there was much more to safely pull out of that car.
I think I can mark “max a car on the autobahn” off my list, and put a nice little asterisk next to it for doing it in a very special car.
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