I watched a show on the History Channel today about the Autobahn. It was originally dubbed Hitler’s Road because he commissioned the work as part of the “New Germany.” Like the roads of the Roman Empire, the Autobahn was intended to be the skeleton of the Nazi Empire. The stretch to the west would go to the Atlantic, while to the east it would run to Moscow. However, when the first stretch was opened, it carried only one car per kilometer stretch of roadway. During World War II, the Nazis blew up many of 1,000 bridges that had been built only a few years earlier. However, after the war, the Autobahn was rebuilt and extended throughout Germany.
Today, many sections of road boast no speed limit, while stretches around the cities become deadlocked with traffic. The coolest thing I learned was that on the unlimited portions of roadway, RUF, the Porsche tuning company, will test their cars before shipping them to customers in order to guarantee the top speed of the vehicle. The RUF CTR2 topped out at 212 mph on the Autobahn—and it’s all legal.