Why the Germans have a knack for building great cars.

Many, many years ago, German, erm, competitiveness involved bad things, and lead to some events which people, understandably, don’t like to talk about now a days. However, the Germans eventually gave up on said unsaid activities after discovering said activities were not there strong point, and begun to brainstorm ideas for new activities which they could focus their competitive energies on. After many board meetings, and calculations, they happily settled on making some of the best and most advanced cars the world has ever seen.     

The fight for power amongst the various German automakers has involved many things over the years. The days of boasting in the school yard about how ‘my dad’s car is faster than yours’ are long gone, now it’s all about stereo wattage, or if you’re really geeky, Nurburgring lap times.

But still, the fight for power is about more than just lap times and hifi systems, it runs much deeper than that, to a place where speed and engine outputs rule, lap times and speed are more important than comfort and even the most powerful of car audio systems cannot be heard from the earths surface. Some of these ideas are just plain ridiculous, but to a German, it makes all the difference. For example, top speed – understandable given the lack of speed limits in Germany, stereo wattage – apparently German businessmen like Rihanna too, engine power output – everyone knows Germans like more power, and of course balancing handling and ride comfort – well this ones a bit iffy, because in recent times automakers, especially German ones, have become so obsessed with Nurburgring lap times that they consistently ruin the ride comfort, in order to go faster and faster around the ‘Ring. Many have protested, mainly old people and James Mays, that going a second faster around the ‘Ring isn’t worth ruining the ride comfort, and they are right. But Germans like to take their businessmen expresses to the track and rip big drifts too you know.

The average German businessman on his way to work in an M5

Many great things have come from Germany, the Bugatti Veyron for instance, or the Audi R8, BMW M cars, AMG V8s, Frankfurt sausages, and the best sports car in the world – the Porsche 911. And strangely enough, it all began with two blokes in a shed who felt like escaping their wives for a few years.

Now, I don’t want to bore you to death with a precise history lesson on the German auto industry, so to put I’ll put it simply. It all begun in the late 1870’s, with Karl Benz and his mate who headed down to their local hardware store, probably Bunnings or Home Hardware, brought some spanners and a couple of hammers and started work on an engine to power Benz’s coach. Together they developed the four stroke internal combustion engine, and in 1878 Benz fitted this engine to a coach he designed. In 1926 Dailmer- Benz was formed and produced cars under the Mercedes–Benz marque and in 1928 BMW produced its first car. The early 1930’s saw the birth of the Volkswagen project, a plan to build a cheap, and robust ‘peoples car’- which turned out to be a hateful, ugly and generally unpleasant little car called the Volkswagen Beetle, which begun production in 1945, and is still, in its basic idea, being developed and built today by an unexpected luxury sports car maker in the form of the Porsche 911.

1945 Volkswagen Beetle 

Ah yes, the iconic sports car, the 911 is basically a Volkswagen Beetle, because the 911 morphed from the beetle. Its engine was in the boot and still is, no matter how you look at it, the wrong place, and they are both rear wheel drive, and funnily enough they look quite similar. Porsche enthusiasts hate seeing their beloved companions compared to such a hateful machine, but without it, there could be no 911. 

Mercedes-Benz 300SL 'Gullwing' 

Anyway enough of the hideous Beetle, lets fast forward to 1954, when one of the most iconic and stunning German cars of all time was conceived, the Mercedes-Benz 300SL ‘Gullwing’ The 300SL was actually initially designed to be a race car only, but the racer received so much attention and admiration, that Mercedes couldn’t resist the temptation to build a road going version. Everything was perfect until they went to put the doors on. The engineers were completely stumped, because the tubular chassis of the race car came up the sides of the car, and so conventional doors could not be used. Then a few days later, down at the pub, after a few beers a bloke, as a joke – probably, said “what if we make the doors open upwards?” Little did he know he was about to create a trademark for the most iconic Mercedes-Benz ever made. This, so I’m told, happens in Germany quite often.

For many the 70s were a blur, a crack pipe dream filled with rainbows and Kombi Vans. Not for the Germans though, while the world was out enjoying the 1970s, the Germans were hard at work, they weren’t interested in the Beetles (the musicians) or smoking a plant that grew from the ground somewhere in the Middle East, so I discovered. Because in the early 1980s the BMW 3 series, as we know it today, was born. Of course there was a BMW 3 series before the 1980s, but that car was a bit rubbish. It was a boring old rust bucket with wooden suspension, milk bottle tops for brakes, and a lawn mower engine. It was a death trap. These are not exactly the qualities that spring to mind when we think of the modern day 3 series, however before the 80s these were exactly the words which described the 3 series, unless of course you were a hippie German.. In which case you’re 70s 3 series would’ve definitely steered you into a tree and killed you long ago. 

E30 BMW 3 series M3 

With this in mind you could begin to imagine why everyone had a bit of a chuckle when in 1982 BMW claimed they had made a new and improved 3 series. Perhaps they replaced the lawn mower engine with a proper one, in which case the car would’ve been even more frightening than before. Well they didn’t do that, but they did give it proper brakes, proper suspension, and steering that the likes of Porsche and Ferrari would struggle to provide today, the body didn’t begin to fall to pieces if you accidentally drove through a light shower, and the engines, the straight sixes were free revving and simply magnificent, BMW had created an icon, and earned cult status among motoring enthusiasts worldwide. BMW was now on the map. As was Audi with its Quattro four wheel drive rally cars which were dominating the world rally stage and its first rally derived four wheel drive turbo rocket road cars which were both conceived during the late 70s and early 80s.

Audi Quattro rally car

By 1998, the German Automotive industry was massive, and its biggest contributor, the Volkswagen group, had grown so large, that its dietary requirements consisted of one or two car makers per day. In 1966 Volkswagen took over Audi, in ’86 it was Seat, in ’92 Skoda was scooped up, and in 1998 Volkswagen was especially hungry and took over Italian supercar maker Lamborghini, British luxury marque Bentley, as well as Bugatti, in recent times Volkswagen has had its eye on Porsche of which it already owns a stake, and VW has shown a keen interest in stomaching what remains of the pan roasted Porsche pork chop. 

When Volkswagen took over Bugatti in 1998, VW went a bit mad, because the CEO at the time called a bunch of the best engineers from the entire VW group into a room for a meeting. At said meeting the CEO announced that VW had brought Bugatti, and he wanted the engineers to build him a Bugatti which would have 1000hp and travel at speeds in excess of 400kph. The room was silent, until one man burst out into laughter, obviously thinking the VW boss was joking. Sadly he was fired immediately.

The whole world thought the VW boss was mad, insane, and just plain stupid. So to show the world he was serious about his elaborate plan to build such a ridiculous car, a year later Bugatti built a concept car to show at the 1999 Geneva motor show which was powered by an 8 litre W16 engine which produced, in the VW bosses eyes, a pretty ordinary 623hp. So Bugatti kept at work until they finally reached the magic 1000hp mark by using two twin turbo Audi engines. Their next hurdle was reaching 400kph, their initial design was 20kph shy of their target, and to achieve 400kph they would’ve needed an extra 200hp and they couldn’t just strap a Golf GTI engine on the back, more power wasn’t an option. To achieve their goal, the engineers begun to experiment with the cars aerodynamics, adjusting the ride height and using the air beneath the car to their advantage.

2005 Bugatti Veyron 16.4

In 2005, VW had done it; they proved all the pessimists and Gordon Murrays (Mclaren F1 creator) who had doubted and criticised them through the process, wrong. The final product was the Bugatti Veyron a car which produced 1001hp from an 8litre quad turbo W16 engine, it cost more than $1.2million, accelerated to 100kph in 2.5 seconds and reached a top speed of 407kph – which as it turns out can even be achieved by the slowest man to ever wear a sweater which has the same print as my grand mothers curtains – James May, and more importantly made it the fastest production car in the world. That was until some Americans rocked up in something called an SSC Ultimate Aero – which was basically just an engine and some wheels stuck together in some blokes shed. And being American it would only go in a straight line and just about spiral out of control trying to do that. It would also explode and crash if you so much as suggested it take a whiff of that corner in the distance.

2010 Bugatti Veyron Super Sport

The Germans didn’t like this and so in 2010 the Americans fame and glory came to an end, because Bugatti unleashed the Super Sport. It had even more power than the original Veyron, 200hp more to be precise, thanks to larger turbos, and it made extensive use of carbon fibre, so it weighed less than before. The Veyron Super Sport returned the top speed record to Germany by reaching 430kph – which is also achievable by a man in a bad jumper with no sense of direction, AND it does it all without spiralling out of control or exploding. It truly is the most extraordinary and magnificent car the world has ever seen. And it’s strange to think that the legendary Veyron is made by the same company who made the horrible Beetle all those years ago. 

The Germans have come a long way, from repeatedly loosing in said, unsaid activities, to Karl Benz creating the four stroke internal combustion engine in his shed, and creating some of the most iconic cars the world has ever seen, sometimes by sheer fluke, in the 300SL ‘Gullwings’ case, sometimes by spending the 70s on the sidelines while everyone else was seeing rainbows and Kombi vans, and often by complete madness, and almost always through being stubborn. 

Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0 

And for this we can put up with the German automakers constantly competing on lap times, top speed, and stereo wattage, and who’s got the best frankfurts, because history tells us that German stubbornness, in the automotive industry will eventually lead to great things. The Porsche 911 is a perfect example, the engine has always been in the wrong place, but the Germans – being stubborn have slowly enhanced and improved the 911 experience, up until now where we have the 997 series GT3 RS, the most exciting raw driving machine in the world.   

So, the world thanks Germany for choosing car making as its competitive energy focal point, and fixing the once a death trap 3 series, creating Quattro four wheel drive, AMG soundtracks, and a 430kph supercar that can be driven by even the most ham fisted of drivers, and still make the most advanced of drivers tingle and fizz with excitement.

The Germans have a word for it, which I think sums up the beauty of German cars perfectly – vollkommenheit.

To save you from Google translating that, it means perfection, completeness, thoroughness, absoluteness, polish. Very German.