As we all know, the beauty of the Nurburgring Nordschleife is that anyone can pitch up, pay the €30 ($31) entry fee and take to the track. In pretty much any vehicle.
As this video shows, plenty lap in the ‘Ring in their van, bus, or even camper. Which is undoubtedly an incongruous, even hilarious, sight. But I bet the drivers are having more fun than anyone else out there.
Of course, some of the vehicles we see here are not quite what they were when they originally left the factory. Indeed, all the old Volkswagens seem to be packing rather more potent engines than they were ever intended to use.
Ironically, the Chevy day van, with its enormous V8 motor, is by far the slowest thing here.
The Opel Vivaro-driving German contractor gets the “try hard” award for entering shot with an armful of opposite lock. And a special mention goes to the Dutch Fiat Ducato driver who gamely keeps pace.
We’ll give props, too, to the DHL delivery guy wringing the neck of his battered, 85 horsepower Ford Transit. We can’t help but wonder how much trouble he was in when his boss inevitably saw the footage. Same goes for the British heating engineer who took his enormous, company-issue Transit on track.
Big as it is, though, that Tranny is a minnow next to the two coaches. The 14-meter (46 feet) long, 4-meter (13 feet) high black Irizar seems to swing into the corner far too fast, but as it is locally based, the driver probably knows exactly what he’s doing. The silver MAN Lion is even bigger and almost engulfs the entire road as it rounds a hairpin. As a former coach driver myself, I can tell you the drivers are having an absolute ball.
Though they’re probably not having quite as much fun as the driver of the ancient Mitsubishi RV, who treads a fine line between getting round the corner on all four wheels, or on the van’s side.
But the undoubted hero of the year at the 'Ring was the guy he rode his Honda moped all the way from South Korea just to ride the track. Read his story at the link.
Gallery: Strange vehicles on the 'Ring in 2016
