Bear with me while I'm trying to manoeuvring through the life in a country that most people from outside know as the home of chocolate, cheese with big holes, accurate watches and a quirky language. And in case you haven't noticed: Cuckoo-Clocks are German!
- 7 days of Creation. God rested on the 7th day. - 7 years of plenty and 7years of famine in the Pharao's dream. - 7 days of the feast of Passover. - 7 last sayings of Jesus on the cross.
Thank you Wikipedia for this.
What about this on my blog? Well, as I always like to point out: A Pflight's gotta do what a Pflight's gotta do (thank you John Wayne for this).
Yesterday I bought a new computer, it's called Leader VII Pro. And guess what: It's the 7th computer I've owned: So far I've had one Apple Macintosh Performa 75 (all-in-one), 2 PC's running on Windows 4 (Windows 98se, Windows ME), 2 PC's running on Windows XP, one Notebook running on Windows XP, and one Notebook running on Windows Vista Ultimate.
And here comes Number Seven: It's got an Intel i7 CPU, and it's running on a 64bit Windows 7 Home Premium.
I just tried out some new software. The pictures were taken at night out of my living-room window. This was my workflow: I took three sets of three pictures, exposure 30", 15" and 5", aperture f:5.0. The three sets were processed with the Photomatix DRI-tool, then the panorama was created using PTGui. The last steps were done in Photoshop CS4: Increasing contrast, and sharpening. For those who have been here before: What you see used to be our lawn with apple-, pear- and nut-trees.
Don't text while driving! That's the message the Gwent (Wales, UK) Police Department wants to send to us. And I think in this format the message is VERY clear: Cassie Cowan kills 4 people in a car accident because she gets distracted by using her cellphone while driving.
Be warned: What you are about to see is EXTREMELY GRAPHIC!!!!!
Hans Schlumpf ran a yarn factory in Mulhouse. His factory held the monopoly for rough yarn all over France, which gave him absolute control of the market for this yarn. That made him a wealthy man. Unfortunately he and his brother Fritz had a very expensive hobby: They collected cars. Old cars. Antique cars. And here comes the sad story: Not only did they spend every single penny of their own pile into their car collection, they also used money from Hans’ company to buy more and more cars. In 1977 the company went bankrupt, leaving over 2000 people without a job. At a raid during a strike in 1977 the mob discovered the 400+ cars. Selling all these vehicles – the oldest was built in 1886 – would have brought all the money to pay the company’s debts. But the French government insisted and turned the old factory halls into a museum, the ‘Cité d’Automobile’, City of Cars. The vast majority of the cars in the collection are French built cars, such as: 19 Panhard & Levassor, 19 Renault, 29 Peugeot etc, etc. But the highlight of the museum are 123 Bugattis. Amongst them are 2 Type 41 Royale from the original Schlumpf Collection, and a replica of a third one. Only six of these wonderful automobiles where ever built.
Here are some of the highlights of the museum:
Bugatti Type 35 If anybody hadn't heard about Bugatti cars in 1924, this changed with the Type 35. Approx. 200 of all variants were built, more than 2000 races were won until 1930. Bentley, Alfa-Romeo, Mercedes, you name it, Bugatti beat it with this car. This was the car that finally created the legend of the brand.
Bugatti Type 41 Royale Built for Royals, but none of them were interested... Only 6 cars were built in total, two of them are exhibited in Mulhouse, also the replica of the Royale Roadster.
Bugatti Type 46 The Type 46 from 1929 was a direct hit against the Mercedes-Benz SS and the Hispano-Suiza H6B. Its 5.3 liter engine was smaller than the engines of the opponents, but Bugatti had enough expertese to make up for that with power and stamina. And of course the body looked like the american cars of that time. The car was also known as 'Petit Royale'.
Bugatti Type 50 T Had the Type 46 established the brand Bugatti all over the world - the Type 50 should now prove that this wasn't just by accident. 'Le Patron' Ettore brought his 20 year old son Jean into the company, and he was responsible for rhis construction and for the breathtaking design of the T-Todel. The 'normal' Type 50 raced the 24 heurs du Mans 4 times, but none of the cars ended the race, mainly because of damaged tires. This was also a problem for the T-Model, as the engine produced 275 hp which was too much for the tires.
Bugatti Type 57 Ettore Bugatti's son Jean built this car, and also designed some of the most spectacular carbodies of all times for it. The bodies Ventoux, Galibier, Stelvio and especially the breathtaking Atlantic Coupé, of which only a handful were built, remain unforgetable.
Bugatti Type 101 After Ettore's death in 1947 the company only built one more model. But without the genius on the helm, the car remained unsucessful. Actually the company missed to do new developments, and so this car was basically a Type 57 with a new body - so the car was basically 25 years old when actually came out...
Bugatti Type 251 The attempt to build a car for the new 2.5-liter formula ended in a disaster. Although Gioacchimo Colombo - the father of Ferraris pre-1954 12-cyclinder engines - had designed the engine the car lasted only half a race.
Both Ettore Bugatti and his son Jean had died already years ago, and the small company from Molsheim had financial problems and was taken over by Hispano-Suiza in 1963. In 1966 Simca bought Hispano-Suiza, and the brand Bugatti disappeared.
Bugatti EB 16/4 Veyron Well, yes, it's a Bugatti... In 1987 Romano Artoli founded the Bugatti International Holding in Luxemburg. He knows people who have money. On September 14 and 15 in 1991 the EB110 is being presented on the Place de la Défence in Paris and in the original factory halls in Molsheim. Many former Ferrari and Lamborghini constructors have worked on the car, but the audience misses the connection with the original Bugattis. 139 cars have been built, plus the prototype of the limousine EB112, when in 1995 the company is going bankrupped. Artoli and his crew have created a financial mess.
When it comes to exotic cars, big brands have the advantage: Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Maseratti belong to Fiat, Lamborghini once belonged to the Mimram family, before it was sold to Chrysler, then to Mega Tech in Indonesia, and now it belongs to Volkswagen. And Volkswagen also bought the rights of the name Bugatti in 1998. After various design-studies the EB 16/4 Veyron is being presented in 2000, production begins in 2003 in Molsheim - but not in the old factory halls, since they still belong to Hispano-Suiza-Mercier. 16 cylinders, 4 turbochargers, 1001 hp, 406 km/h - that's truly Bugatti-like. Although, not much is left from the myth in this car...
Ferrari 500 TRC The Testa Rossa saga began in 1957 and ended in 1962. The concept was to create a competitive open-bodied race-car for gentlemen-drivers, who didn't have the opportunity to race for a factory team. So Testa Rossas were hardly ever operated by the Scuderia Ferrari. The model 500 TRC was actually the last ever Ferrari to have a 4-cylinder engine. The Testa Rossa saga found a follow-up in the timeless ugly 512BB Testarossa from 1984.
Although looking roughly the same, this car is not a Testa Rossa. The bodyshops Scaglietti and Fantuzzi in Modena used the same design from Pinin Farina for several open-bodied racing cars, so it's very difficult to tell the difference. This one could be a 412MM or a 860 Monza.
Ferrari 250 GT Lusso The Ferrari 250 in all its variants marked the beginning of the Golden Age for the italian company with the jumping horse. Most of the cars were designed by Pininfarina, who's name by then still was Pinin Farina. Ferrari built a so-called rolling chassis with the engine, and sent this to Scagliatti, who built the body of the car and the interior. This particular car already showed typical 1970s elements back in the late fifties.
Ferrari 250 Le Mans Although not a real 250 model (the number means the ccm per cylindre) but rather a 330, Ferrari tried to cheat the FIA on this one. The car was presented as a race-variant of the 250 SWB from 1959, but really had nothing in common with this one. The FIA found out what had happened, and the car was banned from the 3-litre races. It had to compete with much more powerful opponents, which eventually lead to the legendary P-Series, ending with the 330 P3 and P4.
Alfa Romeo 8C 2,9 A With the 8C - stands for 8 cylinders - Alfa Romeo presented a new generation of sports cars in 1931. The car first had 2300 ccm, in 1936 the engine was enlarged to 2900 ccm. About 30 cars were made of that type, with some of the most elegant bodies ever seen and very typical for that time.
Arzens La Baleine Paul Arzens was a French designer who designed many locomotives for the SNCF. Also he constructed two cars: La Baleine and L'Oef. La Baleine was based on the chassis of a Buick, and wich it's streamline shape it was 40 km/h faster than the american original. This car is not part of the original Colléction Schlumpf, as it was in use until Azens' death in 1990.
Trabant 601 How many people do you need to build a Trabant? 5: Four fold the cardboard, one handles the glue... This car represents more than anything else the lifestyle in the DDR / GDR. It's twin-stroke engine with 600 ccm produced 27 hp, enough for 107 km/h topspeed. This car is not part of the original Colléction Schlumpf.
The Group B Monsters Ford RS200 Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 In 1984 the FIA introduced a new formula into Rally Sports: Group B. I won't bother you with reglementation details, just so much: Allowed was basically everything, as long as you produced 200+ cars of that model. This lead to this legendary Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, with 500 hp, AWD, and a weight of only 900 kg. The engine was mounted in the middle of the car, behind the driver's and copilot's seat. Technically these cars had absolutely nothing in common with the 'original' 205 that populated european streets in the 80s and 90s, the RS200 never even had a 'brother' for normal street use. Once unleashed, the engine turned the care into a rocket on wheels, hardly controllable by its driver. Many fatal accidents within a very short period forced the FIA to bring this adventure to an end in 1986. Never again have so highly overpowered vehicles entered a rally-track, but the thundering sound of the engines, the puffing of the whastegate-valves and the turbine-like whining of the gearbox still brings goosebumps to fans. These cars are not part of the original Colléction Schlumpf.
Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster After the success of the SSL and the W154 forumla cars back in the 30s Mercedes-Benz tried to catch up to the Ferraris and Porsches after WWII. The result was the 300 SL, which was built as coupes and roadsters, both for normal use and for racing.
Porsche 962 In the early 80s Porsche dominated the so-called Group C with the model 956 and its successor 962. The engine was an evolution-version of the original 911 engine. This car is not part of the original Colléction Schlumpf.
Audi R8 The successor of the Group C in track racing is todays Le Mans Series. The peak of the series is the 24 heurs du Mans, the 24 hour race. The prototypes are the kings of the road, and Audi won the race 6 times with the R8, plus many more races in total. This car is not part of the original Colléction Schlumpf.
PS: I appologize for the messup with the name Franco Sbarro in the first version of this blog, and I want to point it out very clearly here: Franco Sbarro had NOTHING to do with the Bugatti-disaster in the early nineties. He was not involved in the EB110 project. His connection with the name Bugatti is a replica of the Type 41 Royale that has been built until 1983.
Let's face the facts: A mobile home is a convenient way to spend your holiday on a camping ground. You fill the car with all the stuff you think you might need, like clothes, food, drinks, toiletry, laptop, camera, bicycle, etc, etc, and then you drive to the camping of your choice. If you're lucky enough they have still some place for your vehicle, so you park it, plug in the electricity, turn on the gas for the kitchen, and there you go. Happy camping!
So far, so good. Now, in my case the car was 5.5 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2.3 meters high. The camping ground wasn't the problem. BUT: Imagine you have to drive that thing somewhere because you want to see some of the beautiful cities in the area! I drove over to the beautiful region of Alsace in France, so the plan was to visit Strasbourg for the European Parliament and of course the huge cathedral, and to visit also Colmar for the famous altar of Isenheim, painted by Matthias Grunewald. Believe it or not: I didn't find any parking place in either city where you can park a car higher than 2 meters for longer than 2 hours!!! And if you park there, you really get ripped off! In Colmar these parkings cost twice the price for a normal car parking...
In Strasbourg I parked the car for two hours, rushed for the cathedral for a couple of pictures, rushed back to the car and left the city in frustration. In Colmar I didn't even park, I was so frustrated after searching for a parking for more than an hour, so I left the city without having even really stopped.
I ended up in Mulhouse that day, at the National Car Museum with the huge 'Collection Schlumpf'. I'll tell you more about that later.
At least I spent two wonderful evenings in the beautiful village of Ribeauville. But the short trip left a bit of a bad taste after what I've experienced. One tends to think 'what do you expect from a land where they eat snails and frogs', but that's unfair since my parents experienced the same in Germany and Spain with the very car.
Here are some pics:
A stork walking around in the camping Pierre de Coubertin in Ribeauville
It all started with a briefly mentioned idea at a birthday-party: How about meeting again, the same people, at the same place? People who haven’t met for ages... For this I have to take you back three and a half decades. In a little village near Baden a new terraced house was finished and young families moved in. Some of them already knew each other briefly, others just met when moving in. Four of the seven families became very close friends, as the parents as well as the kids where of roughly the same age. We, the kids between 2 and 6 years old by then, used to visit each other day in day out, we played at the huge playground and had lots of fun together. From 1979 we spent Whitsun together in a farmhouse in Eastern Switzerland. The last time we did so was 1982, as our family had moved to Staufen in 1980. I lost contact to most of these people in the meantime, and so seeing these folks again was quite interesting. As well was the weather: The forecast said constant rain from Friday afternoon till Tuesday. But we managed to stay out of the rain whenever we were outside. But now I’ll let the pictures speak:
It's been a while since my last post, and I want to show you some of my recent pictures.
We had a company-dinner lately. The company gave out two tickets for the Interlaken Green Field Festival (Hard Rock and Heavy Metal), and we organized a little airguitar-contest. For those not knowing what an airguitar is: it's an imaginary guitar that people play at rock-concerts. So here he is: The winner of the tickets, accompanied by Queen & Paul Rodgers.
Last weekend I went to the Botanic Gardens in Zurich. It was a hot and sunny day, and this colorful dragonfly grabbed my attention.
