22/10/2025
A week that started at the Nurburgring, finished on the Stelvio, and reminded me why I love driving.
When my last work contract ended earlier than expected, it lined up perfectly with a Nurburgring trip I’d already planned with friends. With a week suddenly free, Mum convinced me to stay on and make a proper road trip of it. A few pins on the map later, the plan was clear, the Stelvio Pass, that famous road every motoring fan has seen on Top Gear and quietly sworn they’d drive someday.
After parting ways with my friend Sean at Frankfurt Airport and returning a forgettable Audi A6, I picked up Mum from arrivals. We went in search of something more Bavarian and ended up with a new BMW M440i showing just 12 kilometres. The agent tried to upsell an 850i, but if an M car had been available, I might have been in trouble.
Mum joined for the rest of the journey, a full-circle moment that echoed the road trips our parents took us on when we were younger, only this time I was driving, planning and paying for the fuel.
We stopped at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, BMW Welt in Munich and the Mazda Classic collection in Augsburg, which turned out to be a highlight. The autobahn offered temptation, but traffic kept things sensible, though a few bursts of speed would see you in an Irish courtroom.
From Innsbruck we set off early for Italy and the Stelvio. It’s every bit as dramatic as it looks, though tighter and more technical than TV ever shows. Probably better on two wheels than four, but the car handled it perfectly. After coffee at the top, we continued through Switzerland’s Ofen and Fluela passes, to Davos then on to Liechtenstein for another coffee and a new country ticked off the list.
By the time we reached Bregenz, Austria, we’d covered about 380 kilometres without touching a motorway. What should’ve been seven hours turned into nine, slowed by traffic and too many pit stops. The beer that night was more than justified.
Fifteen hundred kilometres later, the 440i proved itself the perfect bus, fast, sensible and endlessly fun.
Next time, I’ll be doing the Alps run in my own M car.
