[DeTomaso] Sinsheim Sights

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

I got launched on a 30-day trip on the last Thursday in April, nominally to 
support relief operations in Japan..   Imagine my surprise when I showed up 
and discovered that the USA didn't have a plan in place yet, so in the 
meantime they sent me eastbound, on a vanilla Afghanistan/Iraq/Kuwait mission.

Things proceeded slowly; I spent all of last week camped out in the English 
countryside due to a sick copilot, and am spending probably all of this 
week camped out in Germany due to a sick airplane (the nose landing gear doors 
got all jacked up, and were so bad that they had to go to the big boneyard 
in Arizona, pull some doors from a junked C-5 out there, fly them to the 
depot in Georgia for reconditioning, then fly them out to us here for 
installation--itself a 36-hour process--so we'll be here awhile longer yet).

Today I jumped in a rental car with three other members of my crew and we 
blasted down the autobahn to visit here:

http://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/en

This place is simply amazing.   The cars in the museum are more than worth 
the price of admission, but then you factor in the motorcycles, airplanes 
(including both a Concorde and a Concordski, i.e. Tupolov TU-144), trains 
(lots of big steam locomotives), tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and lots 
and lots of other mechanical implements and instruments, and you have the 
makings of a very full and satisfying day indeed.

No museum of this caliber would be complete without a Pantera, of course!

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=30001
http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=30005

In this case, it's a 1984 Pantera GT5.   Unfortunately I wasn't able to get 
the VIN for the registry, but perhaps it's already in there?

I also spotted a rather unusual Lamborghini Miura P400S.   Take a look at 
it and see what struck me as unique about it!

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=30008

By total coincidence, the day after I left on this trip, a set of Koni 
shocks arrived at my house destined for a Pantera owner in Germany that I'd 
never met, named Volker Eschback.   My neighbor down the street was able to 
intercept the package on my front porch and forward them on to him, and he just 
got them yesterday.   As it turns out, he lives only 15 km from the museum!  
 So after our tour there, we went through the woods and over the hills to a 
tiny village where he has a workshop on the outskirts of town, and we got 
to hang out all too briefly (perhaps 30 minutes or so)

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=30011

I had sent him some Gr4 steel flares a few months ago; he's getting ready 
to take the torch to the car and install them, so the car probably won't be 
up and running by the time the big Spa Italia event takes place in June.   
Still, it was great to be able to meet yet another Pantera enthusiast; even 
though our time was brief, we still had a wonderfully animated conversation!

We had to leave quickly because we had to get the rental car turned in 
before 6:00 p.m. or else we'd get charged another full day.

I'm totally beat now (I was out last night until 2:00 a.m. partying with a 
group of 20-something Norwegian Air Force communications specialists I met 
in a bar) so I think it's time to call it a night!

Mike