When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
All this brake work got me thinking about powder coating my brake calipers. A local place does it for $175, but they need the calipers for a week. It sucks to have my car on jack stands for a week, but oh well. Maybe I should park it on the front yard to be extra classy lol.
I am thinking of a darker color and then I could just put on the akebono stickers. If they melt off on a track day then I just get more stickers. I am thinking of a metallic black or dark blue. Thoughts?
Between those two, I prefer the metallic blue. Not even a close call, IMO.
I agree on a metallic blue color 100%. I was thinking something like the dark metallic blue that is on my wife's Maxima (debuted on the GT-R in 2012), but there is nothing blue on my car and I fear that it may look odd with part of the alloy rotor hats almost being copper now. (I could probably paint them flat black if it would stick to aluminum) That combined with the car having a fair amount of metallic (carbon fiber) trim makes me think a metallic black would look cool too. Especially with the white Akebono letters contrasting the paint. Decisions, decisions.
Hmm.. that might be ok for a caliper, but I hate gun metallic on cars. Everyone gets that color on their car. If you ever see me driving a gun metallic car, just know that I have completely died inside.
If something ever led me back down the road of seriously considering a mustang, it would be a gun-metal stang with black trim.
Gun metallic on a car is a no-go for me, but maybe on the calipers since they would probably never look dirty. Then again, I think a nice metallic black or dark blue would look cool. I cannot think of any other colors that would look all that great on my car because it is pretty much all black and white, with some silver. That reminds me- I thought a lot about having them sanded down to just bare aluminum and then trying to put some coating on them so that they would not oxidize. I thought that might look decent, but I am afraid that any coating would yellow pretty easy with heat or they might look a bit plain in bare aluminum.
I am finally back from my dream European car vacation and I have a ton of pics. I will try to break this down into one day of the trip per post. I have lots more pictures for each day if anyone is wondering if any of these places had certain cars or exhibits. If you missed it, the last two weeks I spent driving all over Germany and Italy going to every car museum, track, memorial, etc. I ended up packing a lot more into the trip than I originally planned. So without further adieu, our crazy trip.
Day 1- Fly into Frankfurt Germany, Drive to Stuttgart, Go to Porsche & Mercedes Museums
This Porsche has 16 cylinders!?!
The Famous "Fat Pig"
959 from Group B and Paris/Dakar rally fame
GT1
Carrera GT
918
Current Nurburgring record holder the 919 Hybrid Evo- 5:19.55!?!
The 1st Porsche
Roundabout art between museum, factory, and design studio
Race transport truck from the 50's and reported to be very fast for its time
300SL
Pope-mobile
Fangio's actual race gear!!
Mercedes high speed aero cars. The monster closest to the camera dates from the 1930's and hit speeds over 300 mph on public roads!?!
Day 2 of our trip was supposed to be a factory tour of the Mercedes plant where they make the S class and Maybach cars and then a trip the Nurburgring for a hot lap with a race driver in a Porsche GT3 RS and then back to our hotel in Stuttgart. We gave ourselves an extra 2 hours to get to the Nurburgring just in case we ran into traffic. Unfortunately, that was not enough time as Easter weekend combined with lots of road construction turned a 3 hour drive into nearly 7 hours. Fortunately, the Ring Taxi at the Nurburgring was flexible and rescheduled us for 9 am the next morning. We lucked out and got a huge suite with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, and James Bond style electronically operated steel shutters(?) that was only a few miles from the track.
We were trying to figure out where to meet up with the Ring Taxi guys the night before as there are so many twisty roads into the Nurburgring and so many places to stop in and around the track. Fortunately, we caught one guy leaving the info. center with a Ring Taxi shirt who told us to try to leave a few hours early as the Friday before Easter is one of the busiest days there since everyone has off Friday. They expected 20,000 cars that day!?! Fortunately he also showed us a back way into the track because the next morning, race cars started showing up at 4 am and the track did not even open until 9am!!! It all worked out, we just missed all the traffic, and I got an amazing ride in the GT3RS- video to follow later.
Front of the main Mercedes building in Sindelfingen which is like a city- 100,000 employees. They make the S-class, Maybach, GT, and armored cars here. 8 of 10 Maybachs sold go to Chinese owners with an average age of 26?? They also have a 100% import tax so they cost $600,000+ in China?!? (No photos allowed inside the factory)
If you have a G-truck I imagine this is the proper way to park it.
How many AMG employees does it take to hand assemble each engine? One.
Example of an assembly line
New car delivery area for factory pickup. An astonishingly high number of people pick up their new cars here every day.
Multi-stage metal prep and paint process
Cool concept in the lobby
If you own a Mercedes race car you park it right in front of their restaurant indoors, naturally.
This display was right in front of our hotel. Obviously, this must be a good sign.
About 5:30am this long line of cars waiting to get into the Nurburgring that opens at 9 is already about 5 miles away from the track.
Same road a bit later got so backed up that they had to close the road
Some fun cars in the Ring Taxi parking area right outside the Nurburgring
Quadrifoglio waiting to have some fun on the Ring
Jaguar XE SV Project 8 with 592 hp was also a Ring Taxi option
My 2nd choice if the GT3 RS was not available
Forbidden Lotus fruit here in the U.S.
The GT3 RS I got to go out in on the full Nurburgring at warp speed. It was AMAZAZING!
On the way back to Stuttgart we stopped at the Hockenheimring. It was closed, but the museum was open. Unfortunately it consisted of 90% motorcycles (snore) so I skipped it.
You can just see the famous corner/grandstands from outside at the Hockenheimring
Typical German street and architecture. If you go to Germany, don't speed. I learned a day late that there are speed cameras everywhere, especially in small towns. To make it more challenging, speed limit signs are tiny and the speed limit changes constantly. I have a bad feeling I may be getting a few speeding tickets in the mail. Ironically, the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn are great and flow well. A long section exists between Stuttgart and Munich. I needed this stretch to get our huge diesel Volvo wagon rental car (supposed to be a sporty stick shift hatch back- thanks travel agent!) up to anything over 200 km/h. Much beyond that and the front end got pretty light.
Here is the video of my time on the Nurburgring in a Porsche GT3 RS with a pro driver. We pass everything like it is standing still, but not because the car is insanely fast in a straight line. It is because we literally carry ludicrous speed through the corners. It is tough to tell in the video because the seats hold us in place really well, but there is so much g-force that I feel like I am going to hurl a number of times. Absolutely insane amounts of grip in that car. Enjoy!
04-15-2019, 12:44 PM
Wow, point made.
