It was a rainy morning in southwest Germany as Joost and I returned from the historic and picturesque town of Heidelberg where we took JE Design’s Audi A8 for an impromptu road trip and subsequent photo shoot. Unlike the previous day, the air had turned cool, crisp and almost unwelcoming under a great grey canopy of clouds that were saturated with more coming showers.
Sunbeams sparsely penetrated the multiple shades of gray and white while the sound of thunder rumbled off in the distant background. Lightning could also be seen in every direction, but we weren’t about to let Mother Nature ruin an otherwise promising day of driving.
MediaTel, Germany’s largest automotive tuning press agency, had arranged a private gathering for some of its clients latest project cars at the world famous F1 ring in Hockenheim. Having received our invitation to attend on short notice, Modified Luxury & Exotics eagerly joined the small group of journalists that had converged here from points all over Europe. A few of us arrived early enough to meet and greet at a nice little Italian restaurant attached to our hotel the night before. The conversation was promising and the food delicious, but a few of us were still weary from our long journeys earlier that day. Sleep came easy that night.
After settling in to the journalist staging area on paddock row, and listening to JE Design’s Bernd Rometsch’s spiel on his company’s mildly-tuned A8, I turned the ignition key and set off into the German countryside.
About 40 minutes later, we arrived in downtown Heidelberg within a stone’s throw of the River Neckar, which flows into the Rhine some 20 kilometers downstream. While it was just a prelude to the more powerful cars back in the paddock, JE’s A8 was a real treat to drive; it captivated onlookers everywhere we went and was a nice, relaxing prelude to what was to come…
