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There's some great place names in Germany - only really funny to English speakers First up the village of "w*** in Algau". The funny thing about this place name, is that in the German language, a man from the village of w*** would be a "w***er"! A woman would be a "w***erin". Another favourite with British tourists just across the Border into Austria, is the village of "Fu©king". Who knows whats going on there Nearby there are also villages called "Hucking" and "Franking" which would be really funny if "Fu©king" wasn't there! Another place I stumbled across one day was the village of "Killer"! I didn't fancy stopping in that place! Not a place name, but funny a company name that nearly made me crash when I drove past: In the town of Villingen is a company called "Limberger Fuchs Koch & Partner". In German Fuchs means Fox and Koch is Cook. I also came across a restaurant in Munich which made me laugh... "China Restaurant Man Fat"! I really don't recommend trying their special sauce

I stand to be corrected, but I believe the latest Euro vehicle rules now required daytime running lights as standard. There's some other interesting rules for driving in Germany: You have to give way to the right at every junction, unless the junction is marked with a relatively small yellow & white diamond shaped sign. The idea is that if two people arrive at a junction at the same time, its clear who has the right of way - The problem is if four people arrive at a crossroads at the same time, they all end up waiting for each other! The size of the diamond sign differs slightly depending on if its in an urban area or on open roads and can appear just before or just after the junction, just to add a bit more confusion. Pretty much all junctions outside of 30kmh zones have such a sign, which means there are way more junctions with a sign for an exception to the rule than there are where the rule is in force, so it would be way easier to scrap the rule and add extra give way to the right signs where they're needed. The give way to the right rule also used to cause chaos on roundabouts where essentially you'd have to give way to people entering the roundabout. They fixed this by adding the typical roundabout sign (blue circle with three white arrows) which now also cancels the give way to the right rule. The only problem is, they didn't fit the sign to all roundabouts, so there are still a few German roundabouts that you have to give way on! Another odd quirk of German roundabouts is you should only indicate when you're coming off the roundabout, so not indicating means you're staying on. There is also no requirement for which lane to use on a multi-lane roundabout (although there are not so many multi-lane roundabouts in Germany). The result is, most people use the outside lane and drive all the way around without indicating. As with most countries, most people forget to indicate to come off the roundabout, so its absolutely impossible to predict where people are going and when they're going to turn off. Another one of my favourites is a rule that means you have to indicate to stay on the road you're already on if there is a sharp curve and a junction on the corner. They add extra signs on these junctions with a thick line showing the flow of the road which has priority and thin lines representing the junctions which have to give way. By not indicating, you are essentially telling the other traffic you're not staying on the road, but continuing straight ahead, so anyone waiting at the junction would be quite entitled to pull out in front of you. Again, most people don't bother indicating on these junctions, but thankfully people don't pull out on you either, so again a bit of a pointless rule.

Very sad news RIP

Been there done that! Saw some pictures of US WRX's with the lip spoiler and thought they looked really cool, so quite fancied having something unique

Time flies Kim! Can't believe this is now my 5th Scooby over 16 years, still remember picking up the first one back in 1998 like it was yesterday Almost 400kms on the clock now, will be taking a quick trip over the Alps to Northern Italy on Sunday/Monday, so should complete the running in and have a bit of a blast over the passes on the way back

Thought as much... not much else there

There's not many around! There's a girl at work with a classic and the dealers 4 sons all drive STIs, other than those, I probably only see 3 or 4 a year! The rest of Germany isn't much different - ownership is pretty exclusive Plenty around across the border in Switzerland though! Bad Waldsee seems a bit of an odd place to visit

Cheers guys, I'm very pleased so far & turns a lot more heads than the black hatch

After 6 1/2 happy years with the Hatch, I decided it was time for a change and for a 40th Birthday present to myself (back in April), I ordered a new 2015 STI. Was a little sad to say goodbuy to the '08 but really happy with the new car... I wanted a few options that wern't available on the standard German spec, so managed to get a Swiss "Luxury" spec instead, unfortunately that meant I had a few months longer to wait. Specs as follows: Full leather interior Electric drivers seat Seat heating Keyless entry Push button start Harmon Kardon Navi system Front Fogs Rear wing delete Rear lip spoiler Sun roof Rear tints 78% with slight mirror effect Rally Armour mud flaps Still to be fitted: Quick shift Exhaust surrounds First impressions of the new car is a huge step forward from the hatch. Its the first Scooby I've owned that I haven't instantly felt the need for handling upgrades. My old car was PPP'd so is 30PS up on the new car, although the sharper throttle mapping and the slight weight saving go some way to make up for that. Will be looking at power upgrades over the next months, once its properly run in! The seats are pretty nice and the leather is really nice, although I had the Recaro's in the old car and do miss the extra lateral support. They've also moved the start button to the other side which is a little annoying, mostly because I keep reaching the wrong way! Can't say I'm massively impressed with the Navi, but maybe I just need to get used to it, but the audio quality from the Harmon Kardon amp and speakers is really excellent!

The Scooby or boxer 'burble' comes from the unequal length headers and the resulting time difference it takes for the sound to travel through the exhaust system from either side of the engine - The bigger the difference in length, the more pronounced the burble will be, with equal length headers you'll get no burble 1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4--- <= Engine firing timing equal --1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4- <= Exhaust sound timing with equal headers -1-----2-3-----4-1-----2-3-----4 <= Exhaust sound timing with unequal headers There is a performance gain in using equal length headers, but its so minimal, you'll only notice if you really need an extra couple of tenths on a lap of the ring! You'll get a bigger performance gain driving in the rain!

July's competition is now open! This months topic: "Lights" Entries/Voting topic -> here Discussion topic -> here Entries Close: 31st July Voting Closes: TBD

Voting open!

Keep the entries coming!

Correct tyre pressures will probably make more of a difference than tyre sizes. Don't forget, if you load up the car, then you will need to increase the pressures.

February's competition is now open! This months topic: "Freezing" Entries/Voting topic -> here Discussion topic -> here Entries Close: Closed Voting Closes: 22/03/2013