Happy Belated Fathers' Day to all the Dads out there

Last Sunday was Father's Day and I was really happy to get everyone's cards! Even got to webcam a bit with my daughter, Sarah, which was a real treat. Thanks to her, I am an honoree on this special day. Happy Fathers' Day to all the dads out there.

Spent last Saturday doing mundane things that have to get done no matter where you are including grocery shopping and laundry. Chose to do that on Sat, my usual day out, so I could enjoy Fathers' Day chore free.

I found out about a museum about an hour away that sounded promising, The Auto and Technik Museum. This place boasted that largest permanent collection of Formula 1 cars and the only place in the world where examples of the only two supersonic jets were on display and well as countless other vehicles, military equipment, and planes of all kinds. Sounded good....sign me up.

When I first arrived, I was a little surprised at how touristy and commeralized this place was. People were hawking LG cell phones out of nurmous booths which struck me as rather unusual. I walked up to the kiosk selling entrance tickets and said "eins, bitter" ("one please", getting to know that phrase pretty well). The cost of entrance was Eur $13 or about USD $18. Seemed like a lot but it was pay or turn around and go home. I was happy to find out that the admission fee had been waved today. It was a Fathers' Day miracle!

As I wandered around, I determined that this was really just a collection of old stuff and not really a museum. The displays were pretty low budget and most of them had these stupid department store mannequins dressed in period correct clothing in some ridiculous pose trying to "bring the display to life". All it did for me was make what would have been a decent snap shots, no longer worth taking. All the cars in the initial displays were parked on white stone mulch like you might use for landscaping. Seemed like a very odd choice. Probably got a good deal on it somewhere. Additionally, except for what I outline below, there was really nothing noteworthy here. Just old, poorly displayed stuff.

On a positive note, there were a fairly large number to road-going (non-race) Ferraris there. Some were run of the mill street cars (as far as Ferrari goes) but others were very limited production, very special and very expensive models like the F40 and F50 (only 349 produced). They also had a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO on display. For a Ferrari enthusist, this practically the holy grail of Ferraris. Only 39 were produced (don't know how many are left, many were destroyed in race relatated crashes). The currunt value of a car like this is around USD $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. Examples have sold for as much as $14,000,000 back in the '80 when the Japanese were buying up everything including Peeble Beach. If this one is authentic (wouldn't be surprised to find out it is not), then it was the crown jewel of the collection.

Also on display were a dozen or so Formula 1 cars from over the years including the 1st Ferrari that Michael Schumacher drove for them in '94, the car he drove during his first season in Formula 1, the race suit he wore during the season he won his first world championship, and some other interesting cars from various teams and various years.

On a side note, Germans (and many Formula 1 fans from around the world) are nuts for Michael Schumacher. Schumacher, a German, broke almost every record in Formula 1 history and won a record 7 world champonships. It will be a very long time before that is ecipsed, if ever. He is much loved in both Germany and Italy, the home of Ferrari.

Also on display was the other reason I went to this museum. Examples of the only two supersonic planes were on display, the Air France Concorde and the (Soviet) Tupolex Tu-144 (NATO name: Charger). Both were mounted on a number of steel post and high in the air to give the illusion that they were in flight. I was happy to find out that both were accessable by climbing up a spiral staircase. Both planes were similiar in appearance and size (turns out that the Soviets stole the plans for the Concorde and just replicated it, pretty common MO in the USSR).

I heard the Concorde was pretty small and those reports are correct. There were two seats on each side of the aisle and the aisle was only about 14" wide. It was pretty impressive though to see the large engine bays which seemed a large as the fuselage itself.

The Tu-144 was very similiar to the Concorde and the Tu-144 was the first commercial- like aircraft to exceed Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound) or around 1300 Mph! I say "around" because several factors like air density are involved. 16 Tu-144s were built and 20 Concordes. Pretty neat to see up close.

I was on a plane over twenty years ago and the pilot announced that we would be able to see a Concorde out the right side of our plane's windows. I was lucky enough to have the widow seat on the right side of our plane and saw the Concorde in flight. It passed us like we were moving backwards. It was really something to experience and something you will never see if you have not already (much like the lunch I had in the Widows to the World resturant which was located on the top floor of the World Trade Center, also a very memorable experience).

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Pictured above: Concorde, Tu-144, Schumacher's first F1 Ferrari, a 1997 Ferrari F50, and a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO (they crashed a fake one in the move "Ferris Buller's Day Off").

Well, that was about it for this museum/theme park. All and all, it was a worthwhile trip. If you are not crazy for Formula 1, Ferrari, or supersonic jets, you could probably pass on this one. I took lots of pics of the few interesting things I saw and they are on my flickr page.

Cheers,

Michael