Mercedes Benz World, Windsor - April 8th

We walked down to the train station this morning to rent a car for the weekend. It was 90 pounds for three days, which really doesn't seem like that much.

The first place on the day trip was Mercedes Benz World. Like the Nissan World Headquarters and Toyota Mega Web, it is a show room. They had a lot of different Mercedes there. Including the first model, celebrating 125 years of being a automobile company. Several Formula 1 cars, including one that was completely disassembled and hanging on wires. It was the exploded view of the car, but in real life. That was very cool. They also had the 300 SL the original Gullwing, and the SLS AMG which is the new version. In a corner they had a red SLS and a silver SLR 722S. Also they had a lot of Smart Car models, including some tuned versions. It was worth the trip for me, but that is in part because they are my automobile company.

We then went over to Brooklands museum which is in the same area. In fact this area used to be the home of a very large plane manufacturing business. At the height there were around 14,000 people working on the grounds. It was used to make bombers during World War II. A track which has gone into disrepair surrounds the entire area. This was because the British didn't have a home track for the GP, which has become Formula 1. They had a lot of race cars. I got to try my hand at driving the MP-19 around the track in a simulator. I wasn't fastest and blew my line, cost me around 5 seconds and I was down by 3. You had to slide your feet into the car, very tight fit.

They had recovered a bomber that had crash landed in Lock Ness in 1940. Americans discovered the wreck while looking for Nessie. The British took over and after raising funds for 5 years brought it back to the surface. There are only two of those planes left in existence today. We went onto the Sultan of Omans plane which was a Vickers VC10 converted into a pretty nice setup. We sat in the cockpit while one of the staff today us about how to operate it. It was pretty cool, and we understand more of how modern planes operate now. They built them all on the grounds. And when the Sultan upgraded to a 747 he gave the plane back to the manufacturer.

This place was a neat stop and is worth a look through, especially if you combine it with MBWorld.

We then went over to Windsor and walked around for a while. We walked over to Eaton and then had dinner at Wagamama's which is a Japanese style place. I had katsu curry, which is always a good choice.

We then drove back. Tomorrow will be a road trip day, so an early start is called for.