Ehra-Lessien

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Ehra-Lessien
Coat of arms	Location

Administration
Country	Germany
State	Lower Saxony
District	Gifhorn
Municipal assoc.	Brome
Local subdivisions	2 Ortsteile
Mayor	Jenny Reissig (SPD)
Basic statistics
Area	56.08 km² (21.7 sq mi)
Elevation	63 m (207 ft)
Population	1,620 (31/12/2006)
- Density	29 /km² (75 /sq mi)
Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	GF
Postal code	38468
Area code	05377
Website	www.ehra-lessien.de Coordinates: 52°35′48.5″N 10°47′45.8″E / 52.596806, 10.796056

Ehra-Lessien is a municipality in the district of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony, Germany.

[edit] Volkswagen test track

Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft (VAG) owns a test track facility in Ehra-Lessien. It was originally positioned here during the Cold War because it was located in a no-fly zone on the East German border, safe from prying eyes from seeing secret prototypes.

As the track is owned by Volkswagen it is thus open to all its subsidiaries like Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, SEAT, Skoda as well as to Porsche, which has a 30% share in the firm.

The facility features 96 kilometres (60 mi) of private tarmac which includes a large variety of road surfaces and curves, such known as test tracks to test vehicles. More significantly, there is a high speed circuit with an unbroken straight of 9 km in length, on which the top speed of several of the cars developed may be determined. Though this portion of the track is absolutely flat and leveled, when standing on one side of the straight, the other end cannot be seen due to the curvature of the Earth. It also includes banked corners at both ends of the circuit, to allow a high average speed around the 20 km lap.

Most notably the Bugatti Veyron's and (in 1997) the McLaren F1's top speed were recorded along this straight. In an episode aired on February 4, 2007 on BBC 2's Top Gear, presenter James May reached 407 km/h (253 mph) in a Bugatti Veyron.

v • d • e Towns and municipalities in Gifhorn (district)

Adenbüttel \| Barwedel \| Bergfeld \| Bokensdorf \| Brome \| Calberlah \| Dedelstorf \| Didderse \| Ehra-Lessien \| Gifhorn \| Groß Oesingen \| Hankensbüttel \| Hillerse \| Isenbüttel \| Jembke \| Leiferde \| Meine \| Meinersen \| Müden (Aller) \| Obernholz \| Osloß \| Parsau \| Ribbesbüttel \| Rötgesbüttel \| Rühen \| Sassenburg \| Schönewörde \| Schwülper \| Sprakensehl \| Steinhorst \| Tappenbeck \| Tiddische \| Tülau \| Ummern \| Vordorf \| Wagenhoff \| Wahrenholz \| Wasbüttel \| Wesendorf \| Weyhausen \| Wittingen