Racking up the border crossings! Vienna & Audi

Back on the road today and the first stop is Vienna; this was a bit of a last minute choice as I'm going back to Austria later in the trip. 


I push south through Check Republic and the most notable thing is how completely different all the buildings are versus Germany; they're stark block concrete painted pastels with frequent graffiti. I saw this almost immediately when I crossed the border and it disappeared as quickly on the Austrian side.

Cutting further south I hit the border; this is the first policed border I've crossed. Albeit the police presence was one man sitting in his car but I believe if you tried to walk over he'd show a little more interest than my heavily loaded; GB plated bike.

And as quickly as I crossed the border I'm back to nicely painted well kept areas.

I arrived in Vienna after dark and so most photos didn't turn out; the city is beautiful and incredibly friendly which I assume is why they've won the World's Best City for Quality of Life (as opposed to "Most Livable City"?!). Drinks were cheap and everything was open late, including all your late night lederhose & shoe needs.

Next morning I was off again into Germany, this time crossing the border quickly to the Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt. Audi currently is the amalgamation of four different pre-WW1 car companies.

Historically everyone with a factory or a garage tried to make motorised pushbikes and  cars but could only produce a very limited quantity. The four above companies all had a range of vehicles and merged together to be able to compete with larger brands (Daimler Benz / Porsche etc). Hence; the four ring logo - which was originally named Auto Union but returned to being called Audi.

The museum houses plenty of historical vehicles from each of the four brands; a few of which are here:

In the years following WW2 many of the prior small automobile companies were sold to other larger companies; this is an unsuccessful prototype from the "W" brand which became the private car of the Ferdinand Porsche (original manufacturer of Porsches...)

Audi had been involved in motorsports since their inception however their current series of vehicles shot to fame 1980s with the inception of the Quattro; a four wheel drive road/rally race car. The R&D that went into these cars went on to be included in their regular customer vehicles.

Of all the cars on show this was my absolute favourite; built as a custom order for the Horch (one of the rings) racing team's lead driver this is named the 1939 HORCH 853 STROMLINIEN COUPÉ and was driven by the racer up until his death.

The original car however was lost however with the technical specifications and drawings as well as a few photos Audi commissioned this vehicle to be made in the mid 2000s; its as exact a replica as possible and is absolutely one of a kind.

These were close runners up admittedly.