In the Summer of 1886, a German engineer by the name of Carl Benz unveiled his latest creation, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, to a fascinated audience in his home city of Mannheim. Whether or not he knew it at the time, he had just changed the world – the car as we know it was born, and Germany was its cradle.
In the intervening decades, the car as a concept has gone through, and continues to go through, a whole lot of changes, but Germany’s infatuation with it, its drive to build upon and improve it, has been a constant.
For every significant moment in the life of the automobile, and indeed the motorbike, Germany has been there, usually at the forefront, and given they’ve been doing it longer than anyone else, they’ve gotten pretty good at it.
Name basically any sub-genre of vehicle, and there’s something German that fits the brief, and fits it well. Do-it-all sports car? Porsche 911. Everyman hot hatch? Golf GTI. Rugged, ultra-dependable off-roader? Mercedes G-Wagen. Uber-luxurious Autobahn cruiser? S-Class. Face-bending sports bike? BMW S1000RR. You get the point – from humble people’s cars to mind-boggling displays of engineering talent, Germany has, at one point or another, had pretty much every base covered.
Germany’s long history of pushing the envelopes of innovation, design and dependability has captured imaginations and influenced other manufacturers from around the world, not to mention spawned a diverse and constantly expanding modifying scene. This, together with that something-for-everything approach, is what we aim to champion with Strassenkultur (or, if we’re being proper about it, Straßenkultur), a celebration of all that Germany has done for the global automotive scene over the last century and a bit, and all it’s continuing to do for the next. Third Wednesday of the month from 5pm.
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