Spec me an autobahn!

arfoll said:
Unrestricted autobahns are great fun, for about 5 minutes. Driving consistently above 200km/h is near impossible. Road works, noise restrictions (especially at night) and traffic means that 170/180km/h is sensible, 240+ for any stretch of time is ridiculously dangerous imho. It takes a remarkable amount of concentration at speed and so I would not recommend it at night. On 3 lanes of traffic trucks are usually no the main issue but grandpa/grandma in a honda jazz who decide to pull out from behind the truck at 100km/h. You can accelerate like a loon though which is fun and on good stretches hit your vmax if you wish to donate all your money to petrol stations ;-). FYI if not obvious cruising at 200km/h takes significant amounts of petrol.

Imho, get a track day (or even autobahn to the ring?) and/or find some nice mountain passes! Lake district for example has way funner roads you can go on and not break the speed limit (although well into silly territory!). If determined to go to germany (which has lovely areas), go to the alps, you can do autobahns & mountain passes. Going to germany for just this seems like a waste.

Since apparently we must state our experience in these threads now.... I live in Munich about 1km from the A8 entrance and own a car that can go 250km/h and a bike that can do 260+ km/h (never hit vmax on bike, it gets way too scary). I regularly avoid the A8 and take the country roads to get to the alps because of traffic and because it's boring.
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Sensible advice. An MX-5 as Fox says will be awful on the Autobahn and it's not that quick. German saloons are designed for the Autobahn, Japanese sports cars are not.

FWIW, there's a stretch of the A1 between Cologne and Hamm that's good fun as it's hilly and twisty, but only if you ignore the 120 limits and go at night. During the day it's too busy so you'd be doing it at night, which I wouldn't recommend if you haven't done it before.

Doing 200km/h+ up and down the hills and tight corners is risky but it's extremely good fun in a balanced, RWD car, but I suspect a track would be a more responsible thing to do.
 
I appreciate what everyone is saying, especially those who live over there. I'm aware of the fact I don't have a supercar and it'll be far better on twisty roads but I do have a couple of other reasons for going:

  • I've done quite a lot of touring cycling in Germany and seen a lot of the scenery, but every ferry journey over there consisted of me arriving at the port exhausted from having ridden 100 miles plus that day with full touring kit (117 miles Aylesbury to Harwich usually), so the idea of just rocking up in the car, maybe even with the roof down is very appealing, rather than being a sweaty mess that can barely speak.
  • The GF isn't a good traveller, to her it's all about the destination rather than the journey so we normally fly anywhere. She would not enjoy going somewhere just for the drive.
  • I've never really driven anywhere far in this car because even if we're just travelling to Heathrow or Gatwick to get a flight we'll take her hatchback because the suitcases will fit.
  • I've driven abroad many times but only in a left hand drive car, so I'm interested to see what it's like driving on the right in a right hand drive.
  • I work near a 1.5 mile stretch of quiet motorway which is completely flat and dead straight, I could easily runt the car to it's limit on my way to work but knowing my luck there will be a policeman with a speed gun hiding somewhere.

So it's just something I fancy doing, it's not a Top Gear road trip by any means but something to do for a couple of days while I have some time off which gives me the opportunity to possibly open the throttle and also be lazy for a change.

Thanks for eveyone's input
 
Drive through Belgium on the E40, if traffic is OK, and go to Aachen/Cologne.
There's a brand new stretch of 3-lane autobahn between Aachen and Cologne that includes a mahoosive straight with a slight gradient. I've topped out my 2.0 Audi diesel a few times on that stretch so you'll have no problems in your MX-5.

Aachen is nice, and so is Cologne, not at all far away. #winning

And then if you want, go back via 'Ring and Spa, etc. Also a long straight on the A1 south of the 'Ring that's downhill and popular with vMaxers, but it's only 2-lanes.
 
If you do go to Cologne, go a bit further up to Munster (which is very nice) and you get to enjoy the twisties of the A1.
 
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