This Vintage Nurburgring Crash Reel Is Delightfully Painful To Watch

I wonder if Jürgen Sander, the man who stood at the side of the Nürburgring Nordschleife with a film camera, was looked at strangely by his fellow spectators. After all, this was filmed well before YouTube, and well before we started coveting these cars as classics. And Sander was pretty much the only guy standing at the side of the track, chronicling the mayhem.

This is Rhapsodie in Blech, a dusty old mail order VHS tape that features a compilation of Sander’s audio-less footage set to cheesy music. And despite watching a few people get bumped around (and occasionally thrown out), it’s a fantastic spectacle to behold.

To see now-rare sports versions of old Simcas, NSUs, BMWs, and Volkswagens being hooned on a touristenfahrten lap makes me happy—it’s what they were built for, after all. We have precious few clips of regular enthusiasts having fun in their cars, especially from that era—and it’s a shame there’s no footage of the drivers who successfully navigated this notoriously tricky section of the ‘Ring.

After watching it, what was the car you were most sad about seeing driven beyond the limit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csyyJCiVuHc

Image Sources: petrol-head.com, nuerburgring.de, classicdriver.com