Greetings from Berlin: Ralph Mantel and Stefanie Schmidt with the Sestriere.
Story by Ralph Mantel
Photos by Blazej Zulawski at Classic Driver
July 8th, 2023, a hot summer night in Berlin, one of those nights you don’t want to go to bed but rather go out and enjoy the temperatures with cold drinks and wonderful people, perhaps attending the Berlin Flitzer Club and Classic Driver Meeting. The Club is gathering together and inviting their people for an privately held event called “Gran Futurismo.“
It is happening inside an Industrial Power Substation built in 1924, located in the former East Berlin, just around the corner from Checkpoint Charlie. Have you ever heard about CPC? During the cold war CPC was a guarded gate inside the Wall of Berlin. The gate connected Berlin’s American sector to the Russian district. Numerous spy movies play around Checkpoint Charlie. Now, after the German reunion the area is right in the heart of Berlin (Berlin Mitte) and hip and cool.