There’s the gap ahead: nail the throttle! Patiently sitting on 225km/h in the fast lane, as the car in front finishes overtaking and dutifully pulls into the slower lane, the throttle gets pinned. The rev counter swings around to 9000rpm, as the melody of 4.0-litres of air-breathing Stuttgart flat six-cylinder sucks in litres of air, and pumps it out again through a sonorous blast of horsepower. Or kilowatts, to be precise (the metric ones, not the electricity ones).
There’s a visible stretch of 2km of clear lane in front of us, and we’ve been waiting around 30 mins for this moment. Carpe diem: sieze the moment.
We’re in the right car, on the right road, with the right driving skills and the right amount of traffic. Porsche’s 911 GT3 Touring manual is made for this kind of speed, claimed for a top speed of 317km/h… it gets to 250km/h easily, but those last 50km/h to 300 seem to take a relative age in sixth gear.
Still, 260… 270… it keep piling on, revs nearing maximum. We’re on the German autobahn, heading south on the A8 from Stuttgart to Munich, a 130km stretch of autobahn that’s clear, dry and reasonably light on traffic.
For the past 30 mins, traffic has been thwarting our top speed efforts. Not in a New Zealand Highway 1 style, with 10 cars sitting in the fast lane, instead cruising at 200km/h+ and in the distance a car doing 150km/h pulls into our fast lane to overtake. Not dangerous with good driving vision, just mildly annoying. The car – 99 per cent of the cars – do indeed exhibit proper lane discipline and move back into the slower lanes as soon as safe and practical. It’s all part of the German driver’s licence exam, which not only challenges drivers to do emergency stops, but puts them in high-speed autobahn conditions as part of passing a licence. And it costs around NZ$2000 to obtain a licence, too, so it’s not for the unskilled or undedicated. By comparison, seemingly the NZTA requires the purchase of a Sanitarium Weet-Bix and said driver’s licence is contained therein.
READ MORE
But in this moment, the road is ready and the hammer drops. Our Porsche is wide-open throttle, and there’s nothing but clear lane ahead… 280… 290… it takes a fair bit of focus at this speed, no time for updating Instagram, as we pass cars with a 150km/h closing speed, who obediently stay in their lane as we whoosh by.
Keep going: 295… 98… just then a warning flashes up on the dashboard. It’s an alert about tyre pressures rising – it’s just for a moment, so they’re still OK. Keep pushing while the oppoertunity is there… and 300 simply clicks over like a clock switches to 12:00. We are covering almost the length of a football field – 100 metres - in just 1.2 seconds! Driving is the single and only intense focus, and as 302km/h flashes up on the speedo, a car 300 metres pulls into our fast lane and we cautiously back off the throttle as mechanical drag and aero quickly haul us back into the high-100s again… back cruising around 180km/h.
With proper driver training and skills learned and earned from decades of defensive and advanced driver training, being taught and also teaching, this was all quite normal and easy – and safe. The Porsche 911 GT3 sports car is designed for these kinds of speeds, staying well planted with just the slightest lightness to the steering above 250km/h, but never feeling anything more than planted.
It’s a momentary thrill, but the longer we spend on the autobahn, the more normal it becomes. Sensible even, that 120-130km/h is the minimum speed in the wet. Even for roadworks, cars are slowed to 120km/h!
A few days later, on our return trip, we’re afforded another single, similar blast, with 301kmh flashing up on the digital speedo in the GT3 PDK, just ticking over into seventh gear at 300km/h before another car 500m ahead pulled into our lane. No drama, no anger, no driver frustration and very, very little tailgating – simply appreciating a high standard of fellow driving skills on fantastic roads.
It’s my third (and fourth) time doing 300km/h, but first time doing it on the autobahn and on a public road. Yes, it’s a huge novelty initially, and almost a rite of passage for driving on the autobahn, and a great thrill but not without its share of risk. Around 300 people die on the autobahn every year, which is around the same number of road fatalities in New Zealand. Given the population of Germany is 17 times NZ (84 million versus 5 million), that’s not a great statistic for our home.
Less than 48 hours later, upon returning to New Zealand, we’re met with the new 110km/h speed limit on the Waikato Expressway, and a line of cars stubbornly sitting in the overtaking lane at 95km/h, refusing to move over, displaying abhorrent driving standards and offering an incredible contrast to the driving standards between one of the world’s best, and one of the first world’s worst group of drivers. NZTA should be ashamed of the standard of driving in New Zealand, and the farcical road to zero campaign is misguided and wildly fanciful.
From Germany’s autobahn to NZ’s SH1, it’s a stark contrast and proves once again that speed isn’t a killer, but a sad reminder that poor driving standards and education are.
We did 300km/h, twice, and sat on 200km/h+ for combined hours, when conditions and traffic allowed, with a renewed respect for a country with a high level of driving competence and skill. New Zealand, and a lot of the world’s drivers, could learn a lot from just a few hundred kilometers driving on German autobahns. It’s a reminder that driving – and high-speed transport - among the skilled is wholly enjoyable and efficient.
