DeutscheMarques & More

Posted on Nov 09, 2023
We entered the car for the DeutscheMarques car show at the Gilmore Car Museum. DeutscheMarques is the largest German car show in America and the Gilmore Car Museum is an automobile museum located in Hickory Corners, Michigan, about a two-hour drive from us. The museum exhibits over 400 vintage and collector vehicles and motorcycles from all eras in several vintage buildings located on a 90-acre campus. The museum claims to be the largest automobile museum in North America. So just a little bit a very prestigious event!

Therefore, we thought we should probably get the car detailed as it has been touched by anyone armed with more than a bucket of warm water for a good few years. We entrusted the car to our friends (yes, literally) at Auto Europe in Birmingham and actually scheduled it for a full detail, paint correction and ceramic coating. We were amazed by the results. The only down side is that we are now too nervous to touch the car, it looks so good.





Besides the Quattro we also entered our 911 rally car, the Cayenne Timsyberia and the 85 911. It was still dark when we set off; or, should we say tried to set off.



Because it was so early it was a little chilly so we decided to put the windows up. The driver’s side went up but the passenger side, the one we’d just fixed, made al the noises but didn’t budge. We’d gone literally 10yds. We drove back inside and took the door car off to diagnose the problem. Hopefully we could still go though it had started to drizzle outside. We definitely needed the window up even if it didn’t go down again.

Once inside we discovered the motor was spinning but the cable seemed to have detached from the regulator. We eased the window into the up position and clamped it there with some vice grips; slapped the door card back on and set off, an hour late.



Although we arrived an hour later than intended the show hadn’t yet started so it wasn’t a problem. We still found a great spot to park, next to a couple of other Tornado Red icons as it turned out.









As it happened they were no match for our “Best of the 1980s AUDI”.



It was good that we fixed the passenger window in the up position rather than down as it poured down all the way back to hour showroom which took 2 hours. When we got back, we took everything apart again and discovered the crimps on the drive wires had failed so now we need to rebuild it again only better this time.

The last outing of 2023 for the car was a small concours event held in Northville, Michigan. This was fairly unique in that it was judged by high school students. Needless to say, they were younger than almost all the cars there. We didn’t win but we had fun anyway and, unusually, weren’t the only Quattro in attendance.