If you follow my blog, you can't help but notice that there are two topics that come up particularly often: "Cars that are fun" and "Road Trips". And in the best case scenario, I can combine both.

Roadtrip: ABT to Goodwood

With 1.812 PS on the wrong side of the road.

When I got the request from ABT-Sportsline, I checked with Goodwood to the Festival of Speed My answer was already clear before the second half of the question arrived in my cerebellum. It should not just go to Goodwood, it should be one Road trip to Goodwood will. With this idea I should have taken about as long to say yes as a student who is asked if he wants to go on the big summer vacation now.

On its own axis to Goodwood

For real speedheads, there can be only one way to get to the Festival of Speed: driving a car. And anyone who embarks on a road trip with the tuner ABT, can assume that the vehicles are blessed with plenty of power.

ABT Sportsline brought 1.812 PS to the start of the trip to the ABT Rhein-Main branch in Rodgau:

• 640 PS in the ABT S8
• 600 PS in the ABT AS6-R
• 290 PS in the ABT Golf GTI
• 282 PS in the ABT AS6 Diesel

Our departure on Friday morning in Rodgau earned me the place behind the wheel of the Audi S600 Avant inflated to 6 hp. When ABT is finished with the performance cure for an Audi S6, it will not only have a new name: “AS6-R” but also 40 hp more than the top model from Ingolstadt, the Audi RS6. In retrospect, even starting with the AS6-R was the perfect solution for what was ahead of us.

With me in the car two colleagues from the media world, including an Austrian, who should teach me much more about the culture of the cute Alpine people in the course of the journey.

"What is it?"

A saying from the alpine country and translated it means: “How is the honorable gentleman?”

How are you supposed to be? 600 PS - all-wheel drive and all packed in the well-known beautiful case of an Audi A6 Avant. Let's go on the trip.

From Rodgau it went via the A3 to Cologne - and right at the beginning of the trip the “abbots”, who started with a lot of effort, were able to show what they are made of. Speedometer 270 and snoring on the back seat. The adrenaline rush at speeds above 250 did not seem to hit all the occupants in the noble limousines.

What I learned on this first section is definitely: 6 minutes pass much faster behind the wheel of the AS60-R than in the back seat. Already shortly after the Westerwald there should be the first driver change and completely below us - just riding with us is like “just watching while eating” - You will not get enough of it. The time until the second stop dragged on. Shortly after the Belgian border, the time had finally come and in addition to the culinary delights waiting for us in the form of fried potato sticks, there was also the first vehicle change.

From the AS6-R to the GTI

How much space and power you really enjoy in the AS6-R, you only realize when you sit behind the wheel of the Wolfsburg success model. Thanks to the ABT performance cure on 290 PS and the significantly lower golf curb weight, the culture shock of halved engine power was not too painful. Freshly fortified by a portion of Belgian fries, we went to the next stop. The Atomium. Every Brussels tourist knows it. And we knew it now too - it should be a quick photo stop. Before the tourists, with their mouths open, looked from the metal atom to the heavy iron from the Allgäu, we were almost “on the road” again.

I can smell the salt

The Austrian did not leave my side and I began to accept him as well as the Wolfsburg compact car with the big name. While the engine control unit in the ABT-GTI was bored with speed-limited highways in Belgium, we were getting closer and closer to the sea. The end of continental Europe, the beginning of a new friendship between Austrians and Germans, was in the air, punctuated only by the loud screeching of seagulls and the clearing of the turbocharger.

We parked our abbots on the deck of a ferry, gathered in the noble rooms of the ship, and waited impatiently like Odysseus for the tantalizing song of the sirens. But the greeting in England was much less dramatic. Get off the ferry, up on the wrong side of the street.

The wrong side

Whether it was a happy coincidence of fate or just my cheeky way - when I got off the ferry, I was back at the wheel and no longer in the GTI but in the Ingolstadt station wagon full of strength.

With 600 PS on the one feels well on the left lane. Also in England.

The ferry crossing was something like a door into another world that you walked through. Suddenly you are no longer in familiar territory. You see the surroundings with different eyes. You are on a voyage of discovery and above all: you are suddenly a stranger. Adapting to the fact that you are driving on the “wrong” side of the road in England is easy - especially when you have colleagues you can follow.

What remains is the fact that speed limit is stupid.   

Our domicile in England was a picturesque hotel in a country house style. Really English. With English lawn all around. With cricket pitch. And of course with biscuits and tea at any time. It only got more English when I came to Goodwood for the first time:

Goodwood – Festival of Speed ​​[click]

On the way to the festival and back, I understood why England is the home of motorsport. Most of the country roads look like they're heading straight for the next bend in green hell. Wild bends, crazy mountain and valley trails.

If the big ABT-Audi were the right choice on the way to England, the ABT GTI turned out to be perfect on the winding roads in southern England. Agile and narrow enough not to have to brake to the stop when oncoming traffic.

Although the 600 PS strong Quattro representatives offered the better traction on the badly paved roads, but who meets just on these windy roads in the dark on unlit milk truck, looking intimidated when buying the next car on the maximum width including the exterior mirrors.

After two far too short, but extremely sunny, days in Goodwood. And with more impressions about England than looking after a year of Discovery Channel and two veritable blisters on the feet - it went back.  (My impressions of Goodwood can be found in the above linked article!)

Had the ABT Audi AS6-R captivated me on the outward journey, the ABT Golf GTI on the island had turned out to be ideal - the return trip could only take place in the ABT AS8.

Eight pots for a hallelujah.

Whether it was because we wanted to go home - such a trip over several days and thrown together from partially strangers can also be exhausting - or simply because of the speed limit in England and Belgium and the narrow country roads on the island every ABT pilot was happy about the German highways.

On the way back, four ABT vehicles with a massive increase in performance flew towards home at a speed that was massively above the recommended speed. Tempo 290 in the AS8 and the Austrian is typing on his Goodwood article on the back seat.

If I learned something from this trip (next to the pillars in the Austrian language = “Wos isn?”!) then it is the fact that the ABT AS8 has awakened in me a whole new career aspiration: I would prefer to chauffeur. But only if my boss has an ABT AS8.

And as long as that works, I'll continue with my blog and these wonderful road trips!