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]

Ok, so much has happened over the past two days. Went to the Porsche Club Great Britain’s Open House. When I arrived I was warming greeted and they even had some small gifts, completely unexpected. They gave me the grand tour of their facility and I have to say I was impressed. The RS America was a hit and I was asked to park it in front of the facility next to Dave Newton’s beautiful 2.7l RS engined 914-6. After all the picture taking I moved the RSA to another parking spot. Because the 914 group was on their way and PCGB wanted to set up photo shots of some the 914’s in front of the facility. I took lots of pictures of them too.

And the answer to Keith V’s question is yes, I wore the RS America shirt to the Open House.

While talking with Dave Newton and his wife, they told me about the Le Mans Classic races in France during July. It sounded a lot like the Monterey Historics, but according to them and others who’d been to the Historics even better. Unfortunately it’s completely booked, but we traded email addresses. If anyone cancels, I’ll get the spot. July’s still completely open, I can do that. It would mean I would have to travel all the way across Germany on the Autobahn back to France. Oh the pain, the pain.

Around 12pm, the 914’s started rolling in, I stopped counting at 43. They were from all over Europe. This weekend was their international rally. I even saw a right hand drive 914-6. All of them were in were in great shape, and sounded good. I’ve never seen so many 914-6 in one spot before, but there were at least a dozen.
At around 2:30 the 914 group held their rally presentations. Then it was time to wind things up and for everyone to head home. Back to Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and a few other countries.

I headed out for Folkestone with the help of the Sat Nav (they don’t call them GPS here). The weather had been threatening all day to rain. It kindly held off until after the Open House. Then it made up for waiting. So I was in the rain all the way to Folkestone. The Sat Nav took me down so many country roads, even in the rain it was fun. I’ve never seen so much greenery, so many roads with the tree canopies arching over the road forming tunnels. It was a great drive. I didn’t get to the hotel until almost 8pm. Don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that it doesn’t get dark here until almost 10pm; the sun comes up at around 4:30am. Makes for a long day.

This morning, got up, had breakfast at the hotel, asked the front desk where the closest car wash was. The guy minding the front desk walked me out the front, pointed up the hill and said there it is. Folkestone has a lot of one way streets, so I had to take a round about route to get to the car wash. I did it without the Sat Nav too, I was rather proud of myself for that one. It was a do it yourself carwash, which I prefer over machine washes. While I was drying her off, John Tipler and a photographer(sorry I forgot your name, just went blank) from 911 & Porsche World pulled up. They had driven down from York along with Angus with his Carrera RS to do a article on both cars and to note the differences between them. Johns 964 was Mint Green and Angus’s Carrera RS was a Ruby Red, colors I’d never seen before on any Porsches. Very striking and pretty.

So we started off taking some pictures of both cars across the street at a skate board park. After that we drove down the coast to take some more pictures, both still and driving pictures. Spent most of the day doing that. I never knew it was so time consuming and complicated putting together a magazine article. I took plenty of pictures of all the cars too. See, I’m not the only one with obsessive compulsive disorder when it come to Porsches, it’s a guy thing, so there Chris.

We got back to Folkestone around 4pm or a little after. We all said our goodbyes and they headed back to York, and I headed back to the hotel.

That’s when the day turned into one of those days. I was unloading the car, and dropped the Sat Nav. When I picked it up, the face plate had cracked. It would still power up, but you couldn’t program it. So I was off and running, first to the front desk. Who in town carries Sat Navs, where are they, walking distance, if not how far.

They pulled out a map, and gave me directions, walked up a really steep hill, I mean steep. I wasn’t the only one breathing hard going up it. Went to the first store, oh sure we can get you one in a couple days. I leave for Le Mans day after tomorrow. So they say go to this store, I finally found it, yes we carry them, get to the counter, no we don’t. Try this store, go to customer service, sure we carry them, I’ll show you. Oops, we don’t carry them anymore.

The woman at customer service says, wait here, and let me see what I can do. Says there’s an auto parts store around the corner, leaves her store and takes me there, the store is closed. We walk back to her store; she gets on the phone, starts calling all over town. She locates one at a Halfords that’s not within walking distance. She takes me out to a cab stand, gives the cabby the directions to the store, and off we go. We get there and the cab driver goes into the store with me, he turned his meter off, we get the Sat Nav, pay for it and we are out of there, on our way back to the hotel. I change my mind and ask him to take me back to the store. I wanted to thank her one more time and I did. By then my blood pressure and pulse were returning to normal.

So that was the end of the drama for today and everything’s fine again. I should be able to find the Euro tunnel day after tomorrow to make the trip to Le Mans with the help of the Sat Nav. Instead of going in circles all over Folkestone.

So it’s been a couple of really full days and I’m wiped out right now. I had planned on visiting Fabian tomorrow, he posts on the 914 world site, but I think I’d better beg off to when I come back to England in September. What I need to do is a dry run to the Euro tunnel with the Sat Nav so I don’t get lost and miss my appointment on the 9th, yes you do have to have reservations for the Euro tunnel. I asked some questions about the tunnel at the PCGB Open House. I was told you drive your car onto the carriage, about 4 cars per carriage, and then you can either sit in your car or stand next to it. The trip takes 30-35 minutes. Cool. If you miss your appointment, they will still get you on a train, just may take awhile. I’d rather make the appointment.

As far as picture uploads go, that may be a while. The hotels “free” internet is there, you just can’t connect very often, too many people trying to connect.

I don’t know it there’s anyway to write from Le Mans, so it may be after the 14th before you get another update from me. I’ll be at Le Mans watching Testing, Practice, Qualifying, and the 24 Hours from the Porsche Curves.

Don