German Car Zone

cawimmer430 · 11-21-2008, 04:19 PM

Today I met up with fellow Germancarzone forum member Pekka (Patrick). He lives and works in Munich and was scheduled to testdrive another Audi Q5 today. It was his idea to invite me along for the ride and thus meet up.

I offered to be the photographer for the testdrive and brought along my small but growing equipment: my trusted medium sized tripod and my new 18-200mm lens (although I ended up using the 18-55mm lens throughout the whole ride as it would suffice). The weather conditions were downright crap. Strong winds, a heavy fall of rain, poor lighting conditions virtually everywhere and extreme cold temperatures – this is what we were facing. Patrick and I met at the local Audi dealership in Haidhausen, my part of Munich. It was actually a gigantic lot belonging to a company called MAHAG that runs the Audi-VW-Porsche dealership there.

Due to the lack of light we had to be selective in our locations. When we left the Audi dealer at 16:00 it was already pretty dark but we quickly drove to a lonely parking lot a bit outside of Munich where long exposure times gave me the photos I wanted. Most of the latter shots were taken in the city near a light source of some kind at long exposure times and midrange aperture settings to achieve a balance of enough illumination and sharpness. We stopped by a mechanic shop that specialized in fixing up air-cooled Porsches and other rare sports cars. They had a Lancia Delta Integrale (!!!) in rally trim outside! I didn’t take many pictures of the place because it was extremely cold outside and so nice and warm inside the Q5.

I didn’t drive the Q5 but as a co-passenger I was able to sample the car in my way. First of all the interior is pretty good. I think that the X3 and GLK have equally good interiors, but the Audi Q5 has that “extra touch” of class in the form of adorning chrome here and there. It works. The Q5 is pretty spacious upfront though the transmission tunnel was a bit wide and thus made leg space upfront a bit limited. Or maybe I just have big feet? Under the hood was the 2.0 TFSI engine, a 4-cylinder that was extremely smooth and quiet and very refined. It was so quiet until about 70 km/h when you could hear it begin to growl in a sporty fashion that was more pleasing than annoying, especially when being hammered. When Patrick slammed the accelerator the 2.0 TFSI Q5 took a second to respond but when it did it took off with a vengeance. Clueless people may feel as if they were being propelled forward by a V6 – it was very fast and fluid. Overall a very nice car and very comfortable too.

Shortly after this the Q5 was running very low on gas (the Audi dealership had given us an almost empty Q5) so Patrick pulled into the next gas station to fill her up with as much fuel as was necessary before he will bring the car back to Audi on Saturday. This was going to be a great place for some photos, so I thought. The gas station was quite busy with cars maneuvering all over the place. I only managed a few shots on the tripod and only one of them was really nice. Furthermore the stinging cold winds made my job very difficult as I wasn’t really dressed for this weather, especially my lack of gloves and head protection – and a scarf would have helped too!

After this Patrick drove it around some more and showed me a part of Munich I’ve never been to before – Grünwald, which is probably the richest area in all of Germany. Mothers going shopping drive to the supermarket in Porsche Cayenne GTS. Secretaries drive Volkswagen Golf GTI’s and seeing Audi R8’s on the street is no big deal. Furthermore, there was an exotic car dealership with cars like a 1960s Ferrari 365 Daytona, McLaren Mercedes SLR, Lamborghini Gallardo, Mercedes SL55 AMG etc. in the showroom. I plan on returning there sometime when the weather is better and when the lighting conditions are much better.

It was almost 18:00 so we pulled over to the closest McDonalds and stuffed ourselves with an overload of calories and cholesterol, but hey, it tasted good. After that we drove around some more just sampling the Q5 and talking about cars and stuff.

Patrick is a really cool guy. He’s friendly, smart and gets to testdrive a lot of really cool cars. We plan on meeting up on more occasions, especially when he’s got a nice ride that needs to be flaunted and photographed.

And here is a shot of me and Patrick in front of a really cool place – a SWINGER CLUB!!! As the saying goes: Who’s next on my wife?

ateekt · 11-21-2008, 04:33 PM

Q5 is the best-looking truck in it's segment! Available trim(s) & price(s) please?

Giannis · 11-21-2008, 04:36 PM

Well, extremelly awesome photography Wimmer!

cawimmer430 · 11-21-2008, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ateekt

Q5 is the best-looking truck in it's segment! Available trim(s) & price(s) please?

You need to ask the Audi experts like DaSilva or Yannis. I just photograph them.

cawimmer430 · 11-21-2008, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giannis

Well, extremelly awesome photography Wimmer!

Thanks for the compliments.

I've only posted the best out of about 60 pictures I took since the weather and lighting conditions were so poor. I really need one of those sb600/sb800 devices!

VroomVroom · 11-21-2008, 04:43 PM

Amazing photography again Chris

cawimmer430 · 11-21-2008, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VroomVroom

Amazing photography again Chris

Thanks.

All you need is a stable tripod and a camera that allows you to change the shutter speed and aperture settings (and a few other things).

ateekt · 11-21-2008, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cawimmer430

You need to ask the Audi experts like DaSilva or Yannis. I just photograph them.

Opsss, I forget to mention! Great job behind the camera, keep it up!

Pekka · 11-21-2008, 07:04 PM

Gorgeous pictures, Christian! You're a really nice guy. It was great fun driving around with you. Let's stay in touch - probably the next testdrive (hopefully with a flat six) takes place soon

.

cawimmer430 · 11-22-2008, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pekka

Gorgeous pictures, Christian! You're a really nice guy. It was great fun driving around with you. Let's stay in touch - probably the next testdrive (hopefully with a flat six) takes place soon

.

Hi Patrick!

THANKS AGAIN FOR THE INVITATION!

It was really awesome and I look forward to the next adventure! A flat-6 sounds awesome. And I have a feeling it will be a water-cooled flat-6, eh?

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German Car Zone

***Wimmer's Audi Q5 2.0 TFSI "Sort off Testdrive"***

Wimmer's Audi Q5 2.0 TFSI "Sort off Testdrive"