This is a kind of ongoing project.
Except - it isn't really a project.
Because it's going to be costly if it becomes one.
It all started when I visited Monaco in 2011.
On a traffic island next to the Rascasse curve stands a sculpture of a 1950's racing car.
Almost as a joke, I sat in the car. Someone took a picture of and for me.
And that's where it could have, should have, ended.
A couple of years later, in 2017, I visited Monza.
And close to the race track was the same sculpture.
I found someone willing to take a photograph. Went into the car and got a second picture of me sitting in the sculpture of a car, with the sculpture of somebody next to it.
After that, I tried to find out a bit more about the sculpture and why there were two of it.
It turned out - there were six of them.
The statue depicts Juan Manuel Fangio, a former racing driver, and one of his racing cars, a Mercedes-Benz W196.
The original artwork stands at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Later a cast was taken from that sculpture and five copies were made.
One is in Monaco and one in Monza.
Two more are in Germany (one in Stuttgart at the Mercedes Benz Museum and one at the Nürburgring racing track).
And the last one is in Buenos Aires (because Juan Manuel Fangio was from Argentina).
A year later, in September 2018, I was in Stuttgart.
There I visited the Mercedes Benz museum and added a third picture to the collection.
Three down, three to go...
But not really.
The first two pictures were coincidences. I didn't know the sculptures were there, so it was an ad-hoc idea to take the photos. I didn't need to put any effort into that.
When I went to Stuttgart, I knew that there was another sculpture there. So, I did specifically go to the museum to take the picture. But it wasn't much of a detour.
In September 2024 I added another photo to the 'collection'.
This time I put a bit more effort into it.
I wasn't going to the Nürburgring, but I was at a place about 50 km away and had a rented car.
So, I drove down to Nürburgring, got someone to take a picture and drove back again.
That picture was the most uncomfortable one. It had rained the previous night and the car was filled with water up to the lower edge of the steering wheel (there is a draining hole at the bottom, but that one was clogged). Hence, I didn't really sit in the car, but more squatted in it. Luckily, it's not too obvious in the photo.
So that's four out of six now.
And this is probably the end of it.
It is unlikely that I will fly to Barcelona solely to take a picture with the original sculpture.
(Though, oddly, the flight might be cheaper than the rental cost for the car to drive to the Nürburgring.)
But should I happen to be in Barcelona for some other reason, I am likely to make the detour to the racing track and add another photo this page.
And only then it becomes worrying.
Because then there would be only one more photo missing for a "complete set".
And the question is: Would I make a journey to Argentina primarily to take one picture?
It's unlikely that I'll get to go to Argentina for some other reason. So, it would be a trip specifically for that photo.
Of course, I wouldn't fly to Argentina, go to the sculpture, take a picture and fly back home the next day. I would make a proper vacation out of it. But that doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't go there without the sculpture being there.
At least I don't have to give that serious consideration for the time being. As long as I haven't been to Barcelona, Buenos Aires isn't a travel option anyway.
(Though it would be weird if I get to travel to Argentina for some unexpected reason first and then have to consider whether I should go to the original sculpture in Barcelona to complete the set.)
In any case, it's four out of six for now.
Update: Well, it's five out of six now.
This was easier than I thought and then became a lot more complicated.
I hadn't expected to travel to Barcelona anytime soon.
But I had a meeting scheduled in Cyprus in November 2024.
And then the date of the meeting changed.
And at the new date, the meeting facility in Cyprus was unavailable,
So the meeting venue changed...
...to Barcelona.
Unexpected.
But sort of convenient.
At least I there was something knew I wanted to do there.
I flew in on the Saturday before the meeting (which didn't start until Tuesday), so I had free time on Sunday and Monday.
As my flight was late in the day, I booked a hotel close to the racing track (where the sculpture is located).
I would be right next to the track the next morning and I could walk over to the sculpture the next morning, take a couple of pictures and go and do something else (which in this case included a short visit to Andorra, but that's another story).
Easy.
There wasn't anything going on at the track during that weekend, except for some guided tours, so access wouldn't be a problem.
Until things changed. Ten days before I went to Barcelona.
There were massive floods in the Valencia region at the end of October, devastating large areas.
There was also a the final event of the MotoGP, a racing series for motorbikes planned in mid-November in Valencia.
Which had been cancelled.
Partly, because a lot of the infrastructure was still missing, but mostly because it seemed inappropriate to host a big sporting event so short after more of 200 people had died in the region.
So, they moved the race to another venue - the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Instead of a weekend with nothing much going on, this was now a weekend with the biggest event in motorcycling going on at the track. (At the Nürburgring it's outside the entrance.)
And that made access to the sculpture difficult.
Like in Monza, the sculpture is 'inside' the track. You go through an underpass, and the sculpture is on the other side.
Not an issue on non-racing days.
But on racing days, security will stop you.
What's worse, the area isn't open to spectators.
It leads to the pitlane and the racing team areas. So only people who are part of a racing team are allowed to go there.
I talked with some security people and they told me that I would need accreditation. And I should go to the ticket office to sort that out.
The ticket office said that all they could do would be to sell me a ticket. But that would allow me to go to the sculpture. (Luckily, there were no queues at the ticket booth, as everyone else had already bought their ticket online. I could explain that I didn't want to see the MotoGP race, but only wanted to go and take one picture. I was willing to pay for a ticket, but only if that got me to the sculpture.) Just to be sure, I asked again whether that really would get me through the other gate, as that was supposedly pit-crew only. But they said it would be fine.
So I bought a ticket for the MotoGP race.
Luckily, motorcycle racing tickets are a lot cheaper than Formula 1 tickets (I wouldn't have spontaneously paid for a ticket for that), but it was still pricey. Partly, because there were no single-day tickets, only for the full three days (of which this already was the third one). But mostly because this race was also to support people in Valencia, so the tickets did cost twice of what the weekend tickets in Valencia would have cost.
It was going to be an expensive picture.
I got my ticket and went back to the other entrance.
Where I was told that this was the entrance for the pit-lane. And I needed accreditation. And my ticket was only a regular spectator ticket and I needed to go away.
I told them again that I only wanted to take a picture, would be out again within five minutes and that the ticket office had told me that I could use the ticket to get in here. And that I had bought a ticket for this specific purpose and didn't intend to see the race. Or go anywhere near the pit lane. Or the team areas. (The sculpture is just on the other side of the underpass, before you enter any 'technical areas'.)
At that point the security person turned out to be human (something I'm never really sure about with security people) and told me that he would just happen not to see me if I go past him, take a picture and be out again immediately.
I went in, sat in the sculpture, took a few pictures and went right out again.
All was fine in the end, but it was a lot more difficult (and expensive) than I had thought it would be. (And I really didn't use the ticket for anything else - I had other places to go that day and didn't have the time to linger around.)
So now there's only the one in Argentina left.
Unfortunately, I won't have any business meetings there. If the sixth picture is going to happen, I'll have to do some vacation travel there. Which will cost lot more than a ticket to the MotoGP.
But then again - only one more to go...