Games Picked Up

• Gauntlet (1985 Atari Games)
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985 Atari Games)
• Paperboy (1985 Atari Games)
• Rampage (1986 Bally Midway)

Introduction

The first time I can honestly say that I really appreciated Rampage was when I acquired, almost by accident, a genuine Bally Midway arcade game.

I wasn’t entirely sure if I should buy it, as my experience of the game on the ZX Spectrum wasn’t all that favourable, but we’d travelled so far and it looked … just … stunning. And best of all, I was standing right in front of it! So we loaded it in the van and away we went (okay we got an ice-cream first). Sounds simple right? Well … it was actually quite the road-trip.

Road-Trip

I took my wife (then girlfriend) on a short weekend road-trip to Southern Bavaria. Mainly to buy a Gauntlet and a Paperboy, but also for a very short driving break. We visited Bruges in Belgium first to buy chocolates and eat Moules and frites (obviously!) and the following day, travelled across to Frankfurt to have sausages for lunch and then made our way to Lauda for another nights stay, ready to collect the machines the following morning.

Outbound

Stanmore (London) to Folkestone (Eurotunnel):

96 Miles (154km)

Calais (Eurotunnel) to Bruges, Belgium:

74 Miles (119km)

Bruges to Frankfurt:

312 Miles (502km)

Frankfurt to Lauda:

80 Miles (129km)

Hotel Rebgut in Lauda-Königshofen.

Lauda is a beautiful place, and the hotel we stayed at was incredible. We ended up staying slightly out-of-town as there was coincidentally, a music festival happening there; so I guess a lot of the hotels were fully booked.

I should probably say, this is how I to tend to travel in Europe - with no hotel plans whatsoever… Just as, there’s always somewhere to stay and you never quite know when you’ll want to stop. So if you’re not fussy, you end up often finding some wonderful places (and likewise, some not so wonderful too), but it’s always worth the risk, and in Lauda, oh my … did we find somewhere wonderful.

Hotel Photos

Welcome To Hotel Rebgut

The Vineyard To The Rear

Actual Grapes!

The View From The Front (including our van!)

The Machines

The following morning we headed over to see superully to pick up the machines. I’d agreed to buy two Atari cabinets; Paperboy and Gauntlet.

Now, one thing I didn’t know was that both these cabinets were on the very top floor of an apartment block! So the seller and I had to carry them down some 12 flights of stairs in the height of summer. I can honestly say there were times during this that I didn’t think we’d get it done. Atari cabinets are notoriously heavy and these are some of the heaviest too. But, we did - unfortunately with a little scraping damage to the sideart but it’s hard enough to lift these cabinets on a sack trolley let alone with just two people down so many flights of stairs.

Once this was done (and many thanks to Ully for taking care of us, it was very hot and he made sure we had food and water) I casually asked him “if he had anything else he might want to sell…” and actually, yes he did! So we went to his storage nearby and I ended up with a Rampage cabinet too.

Rampage (Front View)

Rampage (Side View)

Rampage Control Panel (barn fresh!)

I’m so thankful the Rampage wasn’t also at the top of the apartment building! I think it might have killed me, so yes - barn stored for easy access.

So, after an ice-cream in town to reward myself, we headed off.

Now, completely coincidentally (honest) I just happened to spot that darthnuno from Dragon’s Lair Fans was selling an Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (Atari System 1) arcade game and I had one space left on the van. It felt like fate as it was more or less on the way home (-ish), so off we went.

Inbound

Lauda to Arlon:

245 Miles (395km)

We did actually stop by Luxembourg before getting to darthnuno. Again there was some kind of festival going on, and the city centre was having a big stage step up! We unfortunately couldn’t stick around as we had to press on, but I will say the bakeries in Luxembourg are delicious!

I won’t write exactly where darthnuno lives as he has an incredible arcade and that sort of information shouldn’t be on the open internet. Anyways, Bruno was an incredible host and he showed us around his games room where we had a play on his Galaxian 3 Theatre 6 which is quite possibly the most impressive cab I’ll ever see in a collectors home arcade (it is huge).

Arlon to Calais (Eurotunnel):

240 miles (386km)

The worst part of this story (depending on your point-of-view), our detour had resulted in us getting stuck in some four hours of traffic to rush back to the Eurotunnel, we barely made it and had to skip getting dinner along the journey. And then when we got there, there was a big backlog of trains (and passengers) as they’d found stowaways on top of the train (yes really!) and we had to sleep in the van for a couple of hours before we could travel and ended up getting home really late.

Folkestone (Eurotunnel) to Stanmore (London):

96 Miles (154km)

I’m very pleased with my purchases and the road-trip in general. They’re always a lot of fun, and it’s amazing to meet other collectors across Europe.

I hope I can travel again soon!

The Cabs Arrived Home

Total distance travelled: ~1,200 miles (1931km)