EcoReport is your award-winning guide to green travel, green cars, and saving the green in your wallet on both.

EcoReport is written and edited by Evelyn Kanter, a professional journalist with a lifetime of experience a magazine and newspaper writer and photographer, radio and television news producer and reporter, and guidebook author and editor -- all focusing on travel, automotive, lifestyle, the environment, and your rights as a consumer.

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Germany’s other Oktoberfest, in Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche

Dirndls and lederhosen at the Stuttgart Oktoberfest

The Canstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart is a smaller version of Munich’s gigantic Oktoberfest, although the suds-fueled merry-making is just as raucuous. When some 5,000 people get together in a tent with mountains of food, rivers of foamy brews and a band encouraging sing-a-longs, it is just [...]

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Porsche Searches for Oldest Porsche in USA

Porsche Museum celebrates 60th Anniversary of selling cars in USA with special exhibit

The first Porsche sportscar arrived in the USA in October, 1950, and Porsche is celebrating its 60th Anniversary in America with a contest to find the oldest Porsche in America.

If you own and can officially verify the age of your Porsche 356, 911, 912, 924, 928, 944, 968, Boxter, Cayenne, Carrera GT or Cayman, let Porsche know.  They are looking for the oldest of each model, and there’s a grand prize for the oldest of them all.

Porsche already has received hundreds of photos from proud owners, which are showcased on the special Porsche 60 Years website. Porsche also invites owners of more recent models to upload short stories about their love affair with the iconic sportscar.

Just so you know — in 1950, just 15 Porsches were shipped to the USA.

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Happy 125th Birthday to the Automobile, Born Aug. 26, 1885

Gottlieb Daimler 1885 patent design for 'riding car'

The automobile was born on August 26, 1885.  That is the day Gottlieb Daimler filed a patent for his ‘riding car’, the world’s first vehicle with an internal combustion engine.  The world would never be the same, and 125 years later, engineers and designers are still tinkering with the size, power and performance of the cars we drive and ride.  Daimler put a motor on a two-wheel vehicle, so purists might say this is the first motorized bicycle or the first motorcycle, not the first car.  Let’s not quibble.  This was the start of motorized personal mobility.

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Munich Oktoberfest Celebrates 200th Anniversary in 2010

Munich Oktoberfest celebrates 200 years in 2010

Germany is justifiably famous for its great beer and wine festivals, which start in late summer or early fall and focus on regional wines, beers, and culinary specialties.  The most famous is the Munich Oktoberfest, the world’s oldest and largest beer festival , which celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2010.  Festival dates this year are September 18 to October 4.

The Munich Oktoberfest turns the city into party central.  Dozens of huge tents serve food, beer and entertainment to thousands of people each night, and a sprawling midway lures visitors to Ferris wheels and other rides.  Each of Bavaria’s beer breweries has its own tent and serves only its own beer, and of the beer tents serve tons of wurst, roast pig and chicken nightly, and every tent features an oompah band.

World's largest Oktoberfest beer festivals are in Munich and Stuttgart

Every few minutes, the band plays a rendition of the “Prosit” drinking song, and everybody stops chatting or eating or drinking to stand up and sing while waving their beer mugs in unison.  It’s tough to resist.

I’ll admit — I’ve been there, and I’ve done that.  And, I never ceased to be amazed at the strength of the waiters and waitresses who thread their way through the crowds while  juggling up to eight one-liter mugs without spilling a drop.  You’ll have the most fun if you pick one tent and stay there for the evening, rather than tent-hopping.

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