The famous Nürburgring race track (or the ‘Green Hell') will file for bankruptcy, it has been confirmed. The Rhineland-Palatinate-owned track was denied a €13-million aid package, which would have secured the Nürburgring for a further six months.
A report from the German newspaper Rhein-Zeitung revealed that the operating company has debts of €413m, including a €330m Investitions und Strukturbank (ISB) loan as well as €83m in other loans.
The Nürburgring has been plagued with debt and loss-making for a number of years, most notably in 2004 when the state chose to expand the Nürburgring's complex with a €215m investment. Included in the plans were a leisure and business centre with amusement park and hotel complex, which has proven a commercial failure.
Since 2007, the German grand prix has been held at the Nürburgring biannually with the Hockenheimring. The forthcoming 2013 Nürburgring race is therefore an uncertainty.
The Nürburgring track was opened in 1927 after the 1920s ADAC Eifelrennen – which were held on public roads in the Eifel mountains – were deemed dangerous and impractical.
Nürburg mayor Reinhold Schüssler said: “The whole of Nürburg lives off the ring. Now the region itself might go down the drain."
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(ahem)
Sorry, didn't mean to lob in a grenade and run away from the carnage. I simply meant that BMW and Audi, those most aspirational of brands, have built their business by selling the concept of 'sporting' mainstream cars; I would argue that in fact what most of their buyers actually covet is the undeniable tangible quality of their product. You appreciate ride quality every yard travelled, as you do the beautifully assembled panache af an Audi interior. How many 3 series drivers, and there are a vast number of them, actually get to exploit the last few per cent of their cars' chassis finesse? And how many tick the S-Line or M-Sport box because that is the premium option - didn't luxury used to be premium?
Thanks to Thwartedeffforts for tackling that old canard - good ride quality doesn't require floppy body control and good handling isn't necessarily at the cost of wooden damping and iron hard springs. We've just been sold the line that it does.
Other opinions are available. Be happy.
i wasn't expecting this
how can a track that receives thousands of drivers every year and every single car company on earth develops cars there bankrupt ? Bravo germans.
LoLLerCoaster wrote: how can
Is that challenging to actually read and understand this short article?
where did anyone blame one
where did anyone blame one car manufacturer for the poor ride comfort of another?
Dave Targett did "Damn you Nurburgring, damn you Audi and BMW, and damn the mug punters who pony up for S-Line suspension and the like" !!!!
And I am most definitely not an audi fanboy
Anyhoo wrote:where did
Damn you Audi and BMW for obsessing over the Nurburgring?
The last ten years have seen the emergence of numerous cars with a ride and handling mix that has been widely cheered (as mentioned previously, Evora, XF, not to mention S-Class and even Audi's own A8), and I don't see it as being an industry wide problem, just the current fad for flashy German lifestyle D- and E-segment products with the wrong wheels.
I'm glad you are not an Audi fan boy, though staunchly defending them while at the same time accusing "inept chassis engineers and idiots who decided the ride should be firm in the first place" - when what you mean is Audi's chassis engineers- sounded a bit odd.