Firefly Grand Tour: Lauchheim, to Sinsheim and Baden Baden

In which Sid and Doris exhibit the Firefly amid the technical cornucopia of Sinsheim and enjoy the confident, bourgeois calm of the spa at Baden Baden.

The Technik Museum at Sinsheim is the twin of Speyer, visited by Sid and Doris on the Pagoda Grand Tour in 2020. They are each huge. If you could choose one, go to Speyer with the Russian Buran re-entry vehicle. Here at Sinsheim they have both a Concorde and the Tupolev 144 equivalent up on sticks and available to visit. This is Concorde.

The grey cockpit is Concorde and the blue the 144.

There is a great mix of military and civil, NATO and Eastern Bloc. Here is the Firefly out front with a Sukhoi.

For fans of De Havilland, made near S and D’s adventure headquarters in Hertfordshire, probably a job lot of twin boom Venoms from the Swiss airforce.

For the car fans a Cord, seen  here  in  primrose  …

a La France (in this case as a long distance rally car but the same chassis was used to make fire engines),

an Alvis Stalwart (because it is an … )

and, this being Tour de France time an elegant Peugeot 203 in St Raphael colours with bikes on top.

We also offer an Amphicar, an ideal addition to the collection if you live by the water.

This next was one of our favourites. You may know we have had some transmission issues. This Italian Breda Artillerieschlepper (Miftah Bat can fpeak German) is essentially a gearbox. The whole chassis is cast in one piece and acts as the gearbox casing. The gear stick is to the right of the steering wheel and you can follow all of the gear change mechanism and see the path of power from the engine to the wheels through the several differentials. They have hung it on the wall. It is great.

There is a little feature on the Peking to Paris rally with a 1997-entered car and some of their documentation. Note that in Mugling, between Kathmandu and Naryangat, Philip Young advises you do not accept invitations from ladies.  In so many ways a great man. Thank you, Philip.

Sinsheim is largely a celebration of the twentieth century with planes, tanks, cars and late evolution steam locomotives.

By contrast Baden Baden is a peaceful place to visit by train (1845) take the waters in the Trinkhalle (1842), wander along the Lichtentaler and exult in being one of the in crowd of ‘Europe’s Summer Capital’. Mmmm, how about Nice?

French tourism reduced during the Franco Prussian war. But in 1945 they were back with a vengeance as B B was HQ of the French occupation zone. Since 1955 the French have been kept to the West Bank of the Rhine.

And that is where S and D are off to next, where at least Sid can speak the language.