Shipping my RS America To Europe, Going to Le Mans and a 4 month drive around Europe Options

[DonTraver]

About 6 years ago, went on a trip to Germany, even drove the Ring in a new 997S. Great trip.
While there, I got this weird idea. How great it would be to drive my RSA in Europe and the autobahn.

Well, it’s taken about a year of research and work, but it’s going to happen this year,

I started receiving all the import/export licenses a couple of weeks ago for the RSA. I got all the forms in this week. Shipping has been arranged to ship my RSA in her own private container to the UK with approximate arrival on May 19th.

Found an insurance company that will insure me in 29 countries for about $165 a month.

Joined the Porsche Club Great Britain, got my membership card on 3/31/10. I’m going to Le Mans with them.
They put together a 5 star camping trip to Le Mans every year, they camp in the Porsche Curves at Le Mans, they even put up your tent for you, It runs about $800 for 5 days at Le Mans, Euro Tunnel Pass, tickets, fully catered camp site, private restrooms and showers. How cool is that. I’ll be traveling with the PCGB from the UK to Le Mans, should help me not get lost. I’ll get to watch testing, practice, qualifying, and the race, wow.

I’ve been a member of a 964 Porsche series group for about 7 years. Since I told the group about my plans, I’ve received invitations to all over Europe, Luxemburg, France, Germany, UK, Portugal, Spain, and the Ring. Planning at least a week at the Ring.

After Le Mans heading south, Normandy, Madrid, Lisbon, Valencia, and maybe Monaco. After that head north to Germany, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, the Ring. Etc. Want to catch a couple of Formula 1 races, Spa, Ring, etc. At least that’s the tentative schedule so far.

Found this website that lists a lot of the tracks in Europe and if they have open track days, they do. So I might get to drive Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Spa, and a bunch of others. http://www.trackdays.co.uk/tracks/

Just finished a 60k service on the RSA, new rotors, pads, brake fluid, set valves, new tires, new O2 sensor, had a ipod cable put in for tunes, and waxed and detailed her, dyno tested 250hp at rear wheels.

Had a set of PSS10 Coilovers installed, with new alignment and corner balancing last week, sweet.

Oh yeah, since I won’t be in any one country more than 4 months, I get to keep the California plates on her, cool. I wrote a lot of emails to a lot of countries to confirm that, all said fine by email, printed out all those emails, just in case.

The RSA ships in 2 weeks, when I get a confirmed delivery date, I’ll book my plane tickets.

So long story short. I’m going to Le Mans and will be spending over 4 months driving around Europe in my RSA with California plates, a dream is coming true.

Here's a picture of my RS America at the Lake Arrowhead Porsche Timeline last year.

Don

[DonTraver]

5/21/10

Where to start.

Met up with Stephen Fowel for dinner last night. He also brought my ticket package for Le Mans with him, nice. Stephen came to my hotel, to save me the experience of getting lost in London again, naw, that never happens, I’m just taking the scenic route again. We went looking for a restaurant down on Oxford St. First place we went into was so noisy that we never even sat down, the 2nd place was better, we could talk without shouting. Got back to the hotel around midnight.

Stephen has been a tremendous help putting this trip together. I can’t thank him enough.

Today, did a bit of shopping. Picked up a cell phone Sim card, it worked. So now I’m not out of touch with those back home.

Bought a ticket on the Big Bus tours. It was really nice, because it’s almost like Autobahn Adventures, only on a bus. You could get off at any stop and go explore the area, then catch the next bus that goes by, with Autobahn Adventures, you can pick your own route to the next destination, which made things more fun. It also is a great way to see all the top spots. I got off a couple of times to see some things. Took quite a few pictures, they’re uploading now to a Flikr account I opened. So far it’s taken 2:15 hours and it’s at 82%, 12mp sized pictures.
Here’s the address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20206812@N07/

I don’t know if you have to register to view them or not, seems like every website has started to require you to register before you can explore the site.

You can tell it’s the beginning of the tourist season. The Q’s at a few of the sights was quite long. Westminster Abby’s line had to be at least a 2 hour wait. It was 4 deep and over 100 yards long. I didn’t go, got back on the bus.

The weather was in the 80’s today and clear, perfect. The UK Customs Bureau asked me to bring some sunshine in one of their emails answering my questions about bringing the RSA over.

The area the hotel is in is surrounded by pubs and restaurants. At about 4 each afternoon, they really start to fill up, overflowing outside. If you like people watching, this is a great area. One thing that I’ve noticed and been pleasantly surprised seeing is the mini skirt is alive and well in London. I always like them, but then I think most guys do.

When I got the cell phone sim card at the T Mobile place, they’d told me about this thing called a T Mobil Broadband USB thingy. You can connect to the web anywhere with it, and there was a special on it, buy 2 days, get 30 days free, all for 35 pounds. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped to look at it again and bought it. I’m using it to upload the pictures now. It’s a pay as you go deal.

It was easy to install with one exception. When I tried to go to Flickr to upload the pictures, Flickr was blocked until I could prove I was over 18, to prove you’re over 18, it wants you to enter a credit card number, charge you 2 pounds and then gives the 2 pounds back. Sounds easy enough, right.

It only accepts credit cards issued in the UK. The broadband was working so I went to the T Mobile website, found a phone number and called them. It only took about 2 minutes before I was talking to a human, very pleasant surprise. Long story short, I had to go back to the T Mobile store to get the thing unlocked, now it’s working after I proved I was over 18, lol.

So if anyone visits here and gets one, remember to get it unlocked before you leave the store. Biggest reason for getting one, the hotel charges 15 pounds a day for internet access. That’s about what I pay for a month of service at home. Or think of it this way, that’s about 3 gallons of gas a day or a new rear tire every 11 days.

I’d rather have the gas and tires.

Here’s the latest schedule:

London 6 days Trafalgar Square
Felixstowe 3 days
Stonehenge 2 days
Canterbury 6 days
Morton on Marsh 3 days
Folkestone 3 days
Le Mans 5 days Porsche Curves
Caudan, France 4-5 days
Normandy 3-4 days
Luxemburg 7 days
Nurburgring 7 Days May need tires before I leave.

Still need to schedule:
Nehms, Northern Germany
Copenhagen
Berlin
Leipzig
Stuttgart
Lucerne
San Bernardino Pass
Stelvio Pass
Rome
Monaco
Granada
Seville
Madrid
Calais

Just entered the above in Autoroute 2010, about 7000 miles, not bad. I’m sure I can add to that.

Pretty good list and I’ve still got September in the UK and Scotland to fill. Don’t know if I can fit them all in, but I’m sure trying too.

Good news on the return shipping. Branko at Rinkens in LA sent me a email saying that he could accept my credit card and then pay the shippers here in the UK for me. How cool is that. Thank you Branko.

That’s about all for now, Don

[poorsche914]

... When I got the cell phone sim card at the T Mobile place, they’d told me about this thing called a T Mobil Broadband USB thingy. You can connect to the web anywhere with it, and there was a special on it, buy 2 days, get 30 days free, all for 35 pounds. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped to look at it again and bought it. I’m using it to upload the pictures now. It’s a pay as you go deal. ...

Does that come with unlimited bandwidth? If not, you are going to have one heck of a bill uploading all those 12mp pictures (IMG:style_emoticons/default/pinch.gif)