We’ll Always Have Europe

For a car lover, Europe will never be far from the consciousness. A lot of the romantic marques—Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Mercedes-Benz—were born on this continent. Until the present day, European cars have also led the pack in design and ultimate performance, influencing carmakers worldwide. We spent a few days on the continent of wonders—in spring nonetheless—and couldn’t help staring at the moving artwork on the streets, as well as the wondrous sights surrounding them.

Paris
Arguably the cultural capital of Europe, Paris is undoubtedly its most romantic city. Gilded fences surround beautiful gardens and stunning architecture, and even otherwise mundane bridges are embellished with elegant figurines. Nearly each square meter is seeped in history, and this certainly contributes to the imperial air of the city.

There’s a circumferential road around Paris, appropriately called the Peripherique, but you can only see the sights if you use the inside roads. That means facing congested traffic, and parking is either impossibly expensive or just impossible to find. It’s therefore best explored on foot, combined with the Metro. It’s an excellent subway system, easy to understand and use. We followed the advice of Rick Steves’ Paris—an excellent guidebook.

While walking, our eyes kept being drawn to the cars on the streets. For car watching, a promising start is to walk the length of Champ-Élysées. The long and wide avenue starts at the Louvre, massive imperial palace turned museum. There’s a multitude of car shops here, and they’re not just the usual showrooms. The cars are sold as lifestyle items, and you can expect to find elaborate exhibitions as well as the vehicles themselves. Mercedes-Benz had an MiB II-themed display, and Renault didn’t even have any of its road cars. Instead, it had a full Formula One display, complete with the RS22 V10, car components, driver suits and the Renault R202 F1 car.

Speaking of French cars, we noticed that local cars dominate the roads here. Striking styling seems to be essential to make a sale to a Parisian: cheeky Peugeot 206s, angular Renault Clios & Lagunas, and bulbous Citröen Picassos were plentiful. Toyota Yaris, Alfa 156, and the occasional Mercedes SL55 were also well represented. Perhaps the most impressive traffic circle in the world, the Arc de Triomphe, bookends the other end of the Champ-Élysées.

Man can’t live on gleaming metal alone, and after we had our fill of new autos, Paris provided plenty of other masterpieces to inspire the soul. The artifacts and artwork displayed in the vast Louvre and the Orsay provoke nothing less than awe. (We expected the Mona Lisa to be much larger, though.) Landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the medieval Notre Dame cathedral were even more astounding than we expected them to be. Even smaller museums like Rodin’s house and the haunting Cluny were just as fascinating.

One of our favorite parts of the city is the quaint Montmartre area—the only real hill overlooking the city. Paris’ only remaining vineyard, Van Gogh’s Paris home, Sacré-Coeur church and the Moulin Rouge are all within a few minutes’ walk. Be sure to grab a bite at the century-old boulangerie; the place may be historical but the pastries are oven-fresh and sumptuous.

Stuttgart
Our motoring pilgrimage brought us next to Stuttgart, Southwestern Germany’s largest city. It’s not a metropolis as we’re used to in Asia, though; it’s ringed with vineyards and thick woodlands—the Black Forest is adjacent to the city. What may well be the greenest city in Europe is also the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. The town’s main commercial area, as with most German cities, surrounds the Hauptbanhof or main train station. Vast palace gardens border the Hauptbanhof, and many locals were enjoying the warm sun, lying down and picnicking on the grass.

If the revolving Mercedes logo on top of the Hauptbanhof isn’t enough of a clue as to what company dominates this city, then a quick observation of the traffic should suffice. The three-pointed star adorns all of the city buses and taxis, and many of the trucks and private cars.

A short ride on the train took me to the sprawling factories of DaimlerChrysler. I left a few copies of Rev for our media contact; the receptionist’s curiosity was piqued by the issue featuring the Mercedes F400 concept on the cover. From the reception area, we boarded a bus for the Mercedes Museum within the plant complex. A nondescript entrance led to a treasure trove of historic Mercedes: this facility is the Louvre of car museums. What masterpieces, from the first steam-powered Mercedes 3-wheeler to Juan Manuel Fangio’s Formula One racer to the gullwing 300SL, all in pristine condition. Mika’s MP4-15 was also prominently displayed at the lobby. (We’ll take you on an extended tour of this Museum in an upcoming feature.)

The next day, we headed to Mercedes’ Sindelfingen plant. If the Mercedes Museum was the Louvre of the automotive world, this was the Universal Studios Tour. We rode a multi-compartment tram, complete with tour guide, and it motored right into the various buildings of the plant. We saw massive stamping machines fashioning body panels from rolls of steel. Robots performed much of the assembly work, from swinging large canopies of glass to form the C Coupes’ Panoramic roof, to inserting completed engines under the engine bays. The plant tour was scheduled for ninety minutes, and with typical German efficiency, we arrived back at the reception center just as the onboard clock ticked off the final minute.

We also spent an hour or two at the Porsche museum right beside its factory and a large Porsche dealership. There were just about thirty cars on display, but many of them were quite significant, including the McLaren-TAG-Porsche that won the 1984-86 world championships for Niki Lauda and Alain Prost, with a total of 25 victories.

Our hotel was right across a Mercedes dealership, and we stopped by every day to gaze at the stunning SL55 AMG that was casually propped up on a stand. Alas, we left the town without doing any driving. Perhaps next time we won’t be just looking.

Essen- Köln –Düsseldorf
Our journey to Essen was delayed by nearly 45 minutes because the Deutsche Bahn (train) was late—an almost shocking occurrence in this country. We arrived after in Essen past 10 pm. We then had our first ride in a private car in Germany. Our German friend nonchalantly accelerated to and cruised at 180 km/h on a dark, twisty, two-lane country road. This was in a Rover 620, chassismate of the 1997 Honda Accord. If this was typical German driving, we were in for a real treat.

Essen is a suburban town near the large city of Düsseldorf. We found the town an excellent base to do some sightseeing. The city of Köln (Cologne to us non-Germans) is a mere half-hour’s drive away. We rode in a typical family car, a diesel VW Golf, complete with sleeping infant in a child seat. Our pilot for the day seemed like a typical house-frau, but she could drive like the wind, too, keeping up with the other traffic going at a sustained 140 km/h. The massive Gothic Cathedral, the Köln Dom, looked otherworldly, surrounded by modern day streets and shops.

Our friends generously arranged to spend a day test driving two of the newest European cars, the quick-change artist Peugeot 206CC and the diminutive Smart & Pulse cabriolet. We finally got away from Burger King and Chinese takeout food, and had our fill of German food, as well as Italian and American style adaptations.

We spent a happy and all-too-short handful of days visiting Essen, arriving as complete strangers and leaving with many new friends.

Munich
Our next destination was Munich, also in Southern Germany, just a train stop away from Salzburg, Austria. Munich is the capital of the province of Bavaria. Most of the Hollywood stereotypes of Germans come from this region—the funny hats, lederhosen and the Oktoberfest: all of them are Bavarian. Aside from large mugs of beer, there’s another thing that the region is famous for worldwide: Bayerische or Bavarian is the B in BMW.

Like moths to the flame, we were drawn to the four cylinders of the BMW building and its surrounding museum and factory. But first, we toured the Olympic Park just across the BMW complex. The park, with its vast gardens and ponds, was constructed for the 1972 Olympic Games, but it still looks modern even now. Its trademark is the architecturally controversial suspension roofs that cover the various stadia, making them resemble huge steel tents. The architect described them as spider webs floating over the landscape.

During the 1972 Olympic Games, eight Arab commandos slipped into the village, killed two Israeli team members and seized nine others as hostages. Later that night, all nine were killed in a shootout between the terrorists and West German police at a military airport. The tragedy stunned the world and stopped the XXth Olympiad in its tracks. But after suspending competition for 24 hours and holding a memorial service attended by 80,000 at the main stadium, 84-year-old outgoing IOC president Avery Brundage and his committee ordered the Games to continue.

BMW’s own history began in 1916, when the company started building aircraft engines, six and twelve-cylinder units that powered flying boats and other commercial planes. Even now, the company’s logo is that of a spinning propeller. The company began building motorcycles in 1923, and its first model, the R32 incorporated a flat-twin engine with a shaft drive. BMW acquired the Eisenach automobile company in 1928—the start of its remarkable success as a car manufacturer.

The factory was started nearly from scratch after World War II, first producing motorcycles and then in 1951, cars once again. The BMW plant gives nothing up to its rivals. Modern, sprawling buildings occupy a small town, beginning with the main building itself. The four outer cylinders containing the office floors were assembled storey by storey at ground level then hoisted by steel cables up the central core. The building was thus constructed from top to bottom, and there’s the distinct illusion that the cylinders are floating in midair.

The plant is capable of customizing each car on the assembly line: engine, trim and option choices are recorded on a small radio transceiver attached to the emerging chassis. The robots then know exactly what to bolt on.

The bowl shaped BWM museum is adjacent to the main four-cylinder building. The cars are arranged in an ascending spiral, with historic racers sharing the space with landmark models. This museum has more interactivity, with interior mock ups, computer displays and controls that visitors can see and touch. Some of the remarkable cars on display were the Isetta, with its single front door and 300-cc BMW motorcycle engine and the lovely 507, with its 3.2 liter V8 engine and 220 km/h top speed, inspiration for today’s 400-bhp Z8 roadster.

Amsterdam-Den Haag
After Munich, we left Deutschland and made our way to Dutch-land. We were excited for this leg of our journey, because for once, we had our own car! Or at least a car lent to us by Ford Netherlands. We had a new Focus TDCi, exactly the sharp hatchback that we wanted under our control to explore the city and surrounding regions.

We did trek to Brugges in nearby Belgium, but unfortunately we did so in another train! This was mainly due to a recalcitrant navigator (aka wife). Still, we enjoyed the Focus’ torquey engine and agile handling in the cities of Den Haag (The Hague) and Amsterdam.

Much of the Netherlands is below sea level, as much of the land has been reclaimed from the sea itself. The resulting landscape is utterly flat, with very few distinguishing features, apart from the man-made structures. Not the best place to have a test drive of one of the world’s best-handling cars, but we enjoyed it anyway. Bicycles far outnumber cars in the cities, with dedicated lanes and parking lots for the two-wheelers.

We found the Dutch citizens to be the most polite and friendly. According to our resident friend, the citizens are generally more open to foreigners. In other ways, the country’s quite considerate, too—there’s even an interactive warning for the speed cameras, far enough for you to slow down and avoid heavy fines.

Netherlands controls most of the world’s flower trade, and did we see flowers! We visited the town of Keukenhof, where one of the largest exhibitions of tulips, orchids and a multitude of other varieties, for only three weeks of the year. In the Hauge, we made our way to the chilliest beach we had ever been to: and no wonder—it’s facing the glacial North Sea. Anything in a bikini would have frozen off in less than a minute. The capital of the Netherlands is highly accessible, too, so much so that you can walk through the parliament building without so much as a security guard in sight (although they were probably watching from somewhere).

Of course, when in Amsterdam, we had to walk the infamous red light district; the displays in the windows were eye-popping but not necessarily enticing. A few steps away is the sobering Anne Frank House. A tour of the house, now a museum, recounts in heart-wrenching detail how Anne Frank and her family went into hiding from the Nazis during World War II, and how they were eventually captured and sent to the concentration camps.

The Van Gogh (“van Hock” to the locals) and Rijksmuseum are a few minutes’ away by tram. The Rijksmuseum has an extensive collection of Dutch art. Touring the Van Gogh was particularly rewarding, as it allows the visitor to witness the progression of Van Gogh’s entire career.

In three countries, we found spectacular surprises awaiting us around every corner, whether it was a treasure trove of art from ancient civilizations, or a gleaming new roadster. We experienced many wonderful sights, but the true wonder was the warmth of being with old friends, and making new ones to share the journey with.

By Jason Ang | Photos by Jason Ang
Originally Published in the January 2003 Issue