Good day, dear readers!~
On Wednesday I visited the IAA in Frankfurt! Since I recently have become very fascinated and enthusiastic about cars in general I decided to go to this exhibition by myself for the first time. My Dad had recommended it to me, and so I planned a daily trip to Frankfurt.
I booked a place in the so-called Postbus, a German long travel company for buses. It was very cheap, I only paid 10€ for both ways! Moreover these buses are quite fast: I only needed around two hours to get there - I also wouldn't have been faster with my own car.
Although the bus was ten minutes belated, we arrived in time in Frankfurt. Luckily it was also no problem for me to find my way to the area.
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| Welcome at Frankfurt fair! |
I have not been to many fairs around, only to the Caravan in Düsseldorf. I already have been impressed by the hugeness of this fair - but believe me, compared to Frankfurt it is a joke! I was overwhelmed by the format of the IAA; I never have been at such an event! I only picked out some of the halls with the brands I was interested in since it would have been impossible to visit all halls in one day...
But seriously, you have to follow the ways for half an hour until you see the first cars at all xD
I was quite flashed when entering Hall 3 at first: Darkness, bright light screens and lots of people again... Moreover this day was school class day and there have been so many pupils around. The cliché of young nerds fascinated about big and fast cars was absolutely fulfilled here xD
At first I watched some awesome sports cars from Lambhorgini and Bugatti, then I went to the Porsche sector. Unfortunately it was so overcrowded here, I just had to escape after a while before getting insane... That was also the reason why I skipped the Volkswagen area - but VW is also not my preferred brand at all.
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| Just look at this Lambhorgini! Absolute dream car *___* |
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| A very stylish sports Bugatti~ |
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| A Porsche 918 Spyder |
A Porsche 911 Carrera S - to be honest, these ones are driving me insane in the traffic since most of the drivers are over-convinced from themselves... Like "I am driving a Porsche, out of my way!"
And of course Porsche is investigating a lot in the e-revolution. This is a hybrid car, fueled half with gas and half with electricity. In general e-mobility has been an important topic at the IAA and concerned many brands.
I have been very interested in the models of Tesla, the pioneer of e-cars on the market. I instantly fell in love with one model I had the possibility to sit in... But unfortunately you only could register for a test drive when you're aged 25 or older T___T
Now welcome at Land Rover and Range Rover! Since I have had the possibility to drive with a Land Rover Defender no long time ago I am also very enthusiastic about these sturdy roadsters.
The best thing was that you could register for a test drive as a pessenger with one of these models - on a steep terrain that had been prepared especially for the fair at the outdoor area. The car managed to climb up a hill with 85% gradient as well as it easily managed to drive and to brake in 35% gradient. It heavily shook inside, but it was an awesome experience! (
of course I had to try this out ^___^)
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To be honest I forgot when I took this picture... xD |
In following I entered the hall of BMW. As well as Mercedes-Benz and Audi they have had an own hall for their products (as usual for the most influential brands). And they even had a test track and show-drove the cars sometimes what left great impressions on the visitors! I also sat down for a while and just let myself impress by cars like these~
OMG, this was so awesome: This is a Smart transformed to a driving stereo unit! You can't believe how loud the music was it produced...
Just look into it: The light effects changed, you could see and feel the vibration of the boxes... Imagine your favourite song played on it!~
Oh yes, this was another very cool thing you could try out: Maneuvering this small Smart Fortwo through a quite narrow parcours! Of course I could not withstand to do so myself and registered. And this was the very first time in my life I tried out an automatic - they are so much easier to drive than gearers! I managed with this track quite well after two tries, it made so much fun ^___^ I would always try it out again and drive an automatic in general~
After taking a short break I gathered myself together and entered the most crowded hall, the one from Audi. You had to queue for around ten minutes and I was sceptical whether it would pay off the effort - but yes, it absolutely did!~
At first you take an escalator into a black entrance on the first or second floor. When walking along a blackened corridor you already can take a look into the hall down on the right. But the most impressing thing: Digital images have been projected into the glass screen like in a spaceshuttle! It looked very futuristic and impressed me quite much~
Here we can see this effect of the digital screen again on the right. The other very amazing effect they created was to pin cars on light screens. The animations projected coloured streets of light on the space, and the wheels of the cars simultaneously turned - so it appeared as if the car was rushing along the coloured moving streets! I could have watched this for hours like a little child ^___^
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| Pinned at the light screens~ |
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| Very stylish! |
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| A touring car~ |
In following and as a last "challenge" of the day I entered the hall of Mercedes-Benz. There you also had to queue for a while until you got at the third floor via escalators and needed to follow an one way-street down to the ground again. They "only" had a stage for presenting their cars, no own track like BMW - nevertheless they have shown some interesing models during the shows I saw from time to time.
But: At the moment I am not such an experienced driver that I
would dare to drive one of these big cars by myself... I would be too
afraid to damage them in any way, especially because they cost so
much...
The car with the most HP I tried out was a BMW3, and I still was a learner in driving school these days - that scared the shit out of me... at least concerning driving cars with much power by myself. Now I'm practising eagerly to get better in driving so that I can dare to move models with many HP one day, too!~
...Seriously: I can become enthusiastic about too many models, but this one I considered as absolutely ugly >___< It was a hybrid car and expensive as hell, but I would never ever buy such one...
While I was around in the Mercedes-Benz hall they greeted a prominent guest: Mr Sigmar Gabriel paid a visit to the IAA! I'm not interested in our politicians that much since they are all only changing faces, but this one is quite influential at the moment and I even recognized him!
(But only because he was surrounded by lots of security staff and other important consultants xD Moreover I had no idea what he was doing there at all...)
Oh yes, and there has been a very funny moment at the information desk: Everywhere flyers lay around, and you could decide whether you wanted to grab some by yourself or whether you ask an employee to pack them into a merch bag for you and to give you some advices or recomendations. When I stood there for a moment, a young and motivated guy started talking to me: "Good day! One time 'awesome" for you?" And without waiting longer he packed all brochures of the most awesome looking (sports) models in a bag and handed it to me, together with a poster. I was a bit confused at first, but then joined in and was laughing about the enthusiasm you can feel for cars ^___^ (I guess he has infected me a bit with this~)
This was mainly how the day at the IAA ended - I was surprised how fast time had run out. To get back to the bus station in time I hurried a bit - just to get to know that the bus was belated for an entire hour...! So I seized the rest of the time with walking around Frankfurt central station for a while, and finally in the bus I slept for a while since I was quite k.o. after the day. Nevertheless I managed to get home safely in the evening although it got later than expected...
The next day I had to look through all the flyers and materials I brought with me - and became enthusiastic again because of all these stylish cars *___* xD two posters of a BMW7 and a Mercedes-Benz AMG GT S are decorating my room now~
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| My little yield - everything for free~ |
To put it in a nutshell: I have to confess, it was a great trip! I am really happy that I've done it, and I will definitely visit this exhibition again one day. You just have to get enthusiastic about cars when you are there, even if you are generally not that big fan... But after a while the little boy in all of us breaks out and you automatically start admiring these cool models!~
Thank you for reading and see you at the next report: Look forward to the report about the DTM race at the Nürburgring on Sunday, the 27th of September!~
Junsui ^___^
