Walter Röhrl has driven (almost) everything - and almost always at the limit. As part of the Olympic Rally '72 Revival, which runs right across Germany, he stopped off at the PS.Speicher in Einbeck, whose founder Karl-Heinz Rehkopf (85) gave the 75-year-old exceptional rally driver an exclusive driving lesson in a very special car - and in doing so was able to settle what he considers to be Röhrl's unpaid driving school bill in a humorous way.
From the Donkervoort to the Benz Victoria
Many years ago, the two of them had already sat in the cockpit. Back then, Walter Röhrl gave the Einbeck businessman and classic car collector Karl-Heinz Rehkopf a "driving lesson" in his racing Donkervoort on the Salzburgring in Austria! Now the two met again in Rehkopf's home town of Einbeck: Walter Röhrl is driving in the field of participants in the Olympic Rally '72 Revival, which has been touring across Germany in recent days and took a lunch break in style in front of the PS.Speicher in Einbeck donated by Karl-Heinz Rehkopf.
It was a matter close to Rehkopf's heart to take this opportunity to pay what he thought was the outstanding driving school bill to Walter Röhrl by giving his former driving instructor, now his "learner driver" Walter Röhrl, a driving lesson - albeit in a much slower, but no less easy-to-drive car.
It could hardly be older
And so the star of the collection was waiting in front of the entrance to the adventure museum, filled up with light petrol and plenty of coolant: the Benz Victoria No. 99 from 1894, the oldest street-legal automobile in Germany and one of the oldest in the world. The grande dame was flanked by two much younger vehicles: Rehkopf's Donkervoort, the driving school car of the time in which Karl-Heinz Rehkopf himself raced, and the Ford Capri RS, in which Walter Röhrl celebrated his first racing successes at the age of 24.
After a detailed introduction to the original technology by Karl-Heinz Rehkopf, both motor enthusiasts took a seat on the comfortable bench seat of the Benz Victoria and rolled through Einbeck's historic old town at just under thirty kilometers per hour.
For Walter Röhrl, who drove up to PS.Speicher in style in the Porsche 911 in which he celebrated his first major success 50 years ago at the Bavaria Rally, the Benz Victoria was definitely the oldest car he has ever driven.
And on we go
After the impressive outing in the 1894 motorized carriage, Röhrl switched back to a vehicle he was more familiar with: He completed the rest of the rally in the aforementioned Ford Capri RS. The Benz Victoria returned to its display case on the top floor of PS.Speicher, where it will continue to amaze visitors young and old with its almost 130-year-old technology.
