Germany Meet Report 2016

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Ok guys and gals this is your romping reporter going solo on this one - your raving reporter, being completely raving decided to throw himself out of a tall tree 2 days before we were going to Germany, which resulted in much pain and humiliation for him, and he had already told me we were going in my D3 because someone had attacked his D2 with another car and it was out of action (some people just dont get the hint the first time eh?)

So myself and Chris from the Audi Owners Club (who has a D3 a8 3.0 Tdi) decided to both head over in my car together and Sergey carried out a pincer movement with his D2 via a couple of stop offs with his family on the way and afterwards.

As usual there was over 50 A8 & S8's attending including a nice D4 S8 and a W12 6.0 D2 A8 from Holland. Fred, the owner of the D2 W12 hadn't driven the car for 4 years and had just maintained it and looked at it before deciding to drive it to Germany for the meet. It is very low mileage and still smelt of "new car leather" inside, and was in superb condition (even Sergey had to admit it was in amazing condition!). Fred has decided he would like to come with the car to our annual meet next summer which will be a treat for everyone to see!

So in Germany the meet was just a social on the Friday evening, with more cars arriving still on Saturday morning, and then a cruise to a local riverside campsite / pub where the voting took place for best cars, and also the German equivalent of the IAM (ADAC) turned up and did a small "auto-test" which consisted of a couple of "gates and Garages" to drive around and into in the fastest time, with points deducted for not being accurate etc. We then had the presentations for their trophies, and then cruised back to the hotel and had a group photo etc before evening meal and more social and car chit chat!

As Mike didn't make it you'll be pleased to hear that I scooped up the "further distance travelled to the meet" trophy for my sins despite my car having an air suspension fault and sitting too high in an emergency locked off position. (later turned out to be the 40A fuse under the passenger foot area was blown thereby stopping power to the compressor!)

To Chris and Sergey & his family - thank you for coming along, and to all of you that didn't come - you really NEED to come along! There is nothing finer than seeing 50+ A8 & S8's rolling along the road together, and our friends in Germany are good and friendly hosts, so thank you to all of them at A8-Freunde and A8.DE for being so welcoming, and particular thanks to Viktor, Claus and to Vera (who came to our annual meet this year also) for being so helpful with translation and good company

Enjoy the pics - more to follow