VW Scirocco at Hockenheim followed by the NSU TT vs Toyota Corolla at Le Mas du clos 2006
On Tuesday we start the week with a trip to Hockenheim in the VW Scirocco and what a great combo this is. A bit of History of the circuit 1930s–1960s The Hockenheimring was originally built in 1932 using roads in the forest as an alternative to the Wildpark-Circuit in Karlsruhe, which became forbidden as a racing circuit by German officials. The Hockenheimring was used for motorcycle racing and was expanded to be used as test track for Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union in 1936. In 1938 it was renamed the Kurpfalzring and that name was used until 1947. After the war, former DKW and NSU factory rider and world record setter Wilhelm Herz promoted the track successfully. Grand Prix motorcycle racing events were held, with the German motorcycle Grand Prix alternating between Hockenheim and other tracks. The original circuit was almost eight kilometres long and consisted of two long straights with a long "Eastern" corner in the forest and a U-turn inside Hockenheim joining them together.
1960s–2001 The track prior to 2002In 1965, when the new Autobahn A 6 separated the village from the main part of the track, a new version of Hockenheim circuit was built, with the "Motodrom" stadium section. After Jim Clark was killed on 7 April 1968 in a Formula 2 racing accident, two chicanes were added and the track was lined with crash barriers in 1970. A small memorial was placed near the first chicane, at the site of his accident. In 1982, another chicane was added at the Ostkurve (east curve), after Patrick Depailler was killed there in 1980; and the first chicane was made slower as well. This version used to be quite large, with a very long, fast section going through forests essentially consisting of four straights of roughly 1.3 km, separated by a chicane sequence, followed by a more tight and twisty "stadium" section (so called because of all the grandstands situated there) named Motodrom. This made the setting-up of racing cars difficult, since a choice had to be made – whether to run low downforce to optimize speed through the straights and compromise grip in the stadium section, or vice-versa. The long track length also meant that a typical Formula One race had only 45 laps, limiting the spectators' experience of the race to only that many passes through the stadium. Full details of the event can be found
here
Then on Thursday we go back to Le Mas du clos and take the NSU TT and the Toyota Corolla for a spin this combo has proven to be close in performance and the fun factor is real good with this combo. what is a NSU TT you ask and were did it come from, the car was derived from a NSU Prinz
The NSU Prinz evolved into the somewhat larger bodied NSU 1000, NSU 1000TT, NSU 1200TT and NSU TTS models, introduced in 1963. All had the same body with straight-4 aircooled OHC engines and were frequently driven as sports cars, but also as economical family cars as well. The engines were very lively, and highly reliable. Paired with the low total weight, excellent handling and cornering, both the NSU 1000 and the much higher powered NSU 1200 TT/TTS outperformed many sportscars. In 1965, an even larger model was added, initially called Type 110 and from 1967 on NSU 12oo It offered more space, so it was a better family car, but was not as sporty as the smaller models. Therefore, the NSU 1200TT used the 1200 cc engine of the 1200 in the smaller body of the NSU 1000. Full details fo the event can be found
here
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