We all know what to expect when we climb aboard a coach: the most boring ride of our lives, and if you happen to be taller than the five-foot model they used when making the seats, one of the most painful experiences you’ll ever go through that actually cost money as well.
Coaches are probably the last means of transportation any rational human being should ever choose. They’re slower than trains, less safe since they don’t drive alone on the roads, and they’re significantly slower than airplanes. The only advantage is a direct consequence of all the disadvantages mentioned above: tickets are cheaper.
But just like in any other segment of the automotive industry, there are coaches and coaches and, as you’d expect, the ones made by Mercedes-Benz are a cut above. One of the Daimler brands building coaches is called Setra, and one of its latest models is the S 511 HD club coach.
One of the more special tasks entrusted to this rather short coach (it only measures 10,465 mm or 412 inches in length) is to ferry around the visitors of Daimler’s test track in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim. The testing facility is located near Daimler’s main plant in Stuttgart, and it offers its 2,500 visitors a year the chance to experience a 15-kilometer long route that takes them through different testing programs.
Well, the visitors can go through this route - which includes driving on uphill and downhill sections or braking and evasive maneuvers - on board the new Setra S 511 HD coach, the model replacing its previous generation called S 411 HD that served the same purpose for six years.
The organizers, however, have kept the best for last, because the experience ends with the passenger carrier driving on the banked curve that has a 60-meters radius. The coach reaches up to 100 km/h for this stunt and, the Mercedes-Benz press release says - and we have to trust them on this, it tilts up to 90 degrees. Which, you know, means that depending on which side of the bus you are, you either see the asphalt or the sky through the window next to you. And people say Germans have no sense of humor.
We’ve included a video below - sadly, it’s not filmed from a Setra coach, but a Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and yet you can still hear the passengers giggling. Imagine the screams inside the coach...
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