‘Tempolimit? Nein, danke!’: why German petrolheads won’t slow down – despite the energy crisis

‘When you’re in the right car, the road is clear, and you can really open it up, you enter a kind of flow state.’ Photograph: filmfoto/Alamy

Death-defying thrills are not what draws Lutz Leif Linden to zip down the Autobahn faster than a plane taking off. Instead, the feeling of freedom and an appreciation of technological mastery play a part in his “almost loving relationship” with driving cars faster than most people can imagine.

The top speed he has reached on the road in Germany, the world’s only democracy without a blanket speed limit on motorways, is 400km/h (249mph). “It’s like an airplane,” said Linden, the president of the Automobile Club of Germany (AvD). “You are faster than an Airbus at start.”