Yesterday my employers had a company day at Mercedes-Benz World, which is just outside London. We had a company meeting, but it was to reward the employees. We are all contracted out to different companies and so we do not get together very often.
I had to get up fairly early as it was a bit of a drive on some busy roads. It was actually not too bad and I was there a bit early. Others were already there and we could get a coffee whilst we waited. It is a big 3-storey building near the old Brooklands race track. It is basically a fancy car showroom. They have all the current models, but also some more interesting vehicles on display including these Formula 1 cars.
I prefer this 1950's model as driven by Fangio and Stirling Moss.
In the lobby are a Le Mans racer, a Maybach limo and a prototype you can see better below.
The C111 was a prototype from around 1970. It had gull-wing doors and a Wankel engine. Apparently there are only 13 of these and all are owned by Mercedes, so it is effectively priceless.
I am not really a car person, but I can appreciate the engineering. Engineers would like this 'exploded' F1 car.
They also have a few classic cars showing off the company history.
They have lots of racing simulators and we all had a go at being Lewis Hamilton with a prize for the fastest lap. I was nowhere near that as I found it hard to stay on the track. Driving with your feet up in the air is strange.
We could opt in to a driving or passenger experience. I went for the latter where we were taken out in a 4 Litre AMG car.
They have several test tracks. We were taken on the the skid pan where the driver showed us how to control a car on a surface that was like ice. It was quite educational as he also demonstrated how to brake effectively on another area. He took us out on the track to show what the car could do. I have little experience of that sort of driving and it was impressive. He got up to 100mph on the short straight before throwing it in the corner. The rear wheels were sliding, but it felt like he had it under control.
I had a look in their merchandise shop, but I would not generally wear anything with car logos on. A baseball cap was £40! That shows the sort of customers they get, but then some will be paying over £100,000 for their car. If you buy an AMG model you can pick it up there and get some training. I have no plans to buy a Mercedes, but their electric models seemed impressive. They are just too expensive and some are bigger than I would want.
Lunch was a BBQ on the upper terrace, but there was a lack of veggie options. I had a good chat with various people. It was a really warm day, but a little windy. It would have been very different a few days earlier when we had heavy rain.
I had a long drive home despite trying to leave before rush hour. The M25 motorway was clogged up. I used to drive into London every day for work and am so glad I do not do that any more. It was a good day out overall, but I was really tired when I got home.
It all looks a little heavenly to me! I've been lucky enough to sit in a Maybach - they're something else! I'd love to go in an AMG SL63 - it's up there in my list of dream cars. I often drive Mercedes/AMG cars in my racing simulator.
I'm sure you would love it there. You can drive those cars for a few hundred quid.
There was an electric AMG SLS in the showroom. I bet it goes like a rocket. My ride was exciting enough.
I was rubbish on the simulators. I just didn't get the feel of it in the time we had.
!HUG
I sent 1.0 HUG
(2/3)Dear @stav, you just got hugged. on behalf of @steevc.
I myself am very fond of cars since my childhood and love to see and drive different cars so you can see in the picture that there are cars that I have only seen but not driven. ODI is my only favorite car and I will definitely buy it one day.
I'd love to try my hand at the skid track. Having grown up in Michigan winters, I feel like I might have a slight advantage 😃. This looks like it was an awesome day for you.
If you are used to snow and ice driving then you might do well. I think we could all do with some training to prepare for bad conditions, especially here where we get snow every few years so we never really learn to deal with it.
It's like that here in the southern states. Also the first some of the winter up here. People take a bit to relearn the skills.
Driving is one of those things nobody will admit to not being great at :)
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Hiya, @lizanomadsoul here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!Sounds like a super fun day you had over there. Those cars look amazing and although I'm not heavily into my cars or F1 the work that goes into creating these vehicles and the people that drive them I give hats off to them all.
The simulators look really fun and I never realized how high up your feet are it is almost as if you are laying down.
it would be so tempting to buy the merch but at that price probably not.
I grudge spending £30 for my Manchester United shirt from Addidas haha, Terrific post :)
It's fun to get these experiences. Nice of the company to treat us.
The model of the cars do not even look old. They are very beautiful and I love their shapes even more than the ones that we are buying now
I suspect some of the old cars would not be so nice to drive even if they look good. They can lack the nice features we are used to like power steering and good brakes.
I used to leave near Brooklands and would go there quite often especially when I had visitors. It makes a great day out for both kids and adults. Apparently they only have a few of these Center of Excellence around the world so it's pretty cool there's one nearby, and even cooler that your company did a team meet up there.
They said that kids can drive the cars if they are tall enough. The youngest they've had was 8!
Btw,can you hurry up to get to 100k, I was very tempted to power up for you yesterday!!!
LOL! I'll get there in the next couple of days. I'll see if I can speed it up a little. I can relax once I hit that milestone.
I scraped together some HE funds, so I should hit 100k tomorrow just from curation.
Yes!!! 🤛
It's like someone dangling a sweet in front of you and you so want to gobble it up immediately 🍬🍭
I made it! Will post about it soon.
Wow!!! So beautiful! I liked the exploded F1 car. Beautiful sports car to race at Les Mans. Thanks for sharing with us this amazing exhibition of cars
I'm sure any case nut would love it.
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Wow I have to say that this place is really beautiful from the photos you took I didn't even know it existed definitely a place to visit for racing car lovers.
cool car