August 2
Written August 8
Dear Friends and Family,
Still the story-picture-link format. May change again, after this trip.
Story
One more car event: the Porsche Museum. (No factory tours in August since the plant is shutdown for vacation and re-tooling. Besides, we had already toured the Finnish factory where our own Porsche Boxster had been assembled.) It is in the Stuttgart district of Zuffenhausen, a short subway ride from downtown.
The museum has 80 of the most historic Porsches out of the factory collection of over 600 cars. As Germany's smallest independent* car manufacturer, the company is very proud of its history and the museum is extremely well done and a must-see for Porsche fans. Our story will be mostly told in the pictures.
As for our ranking of the three car museums we've seen: Audi, Mercedes, and Porsche, I'd have to say we enjoyed Audi most but Porsche came in second, because we are indeed Porsche fans.
John and Marianne
* "independent" for Porsche has a long history. At various times, Porsche has been owned, at least in part, by Mercedes, Audi and Volkswagen. Currently, it is one of the 10 Volkswagen brands, after having lost it's ambitious take-over attack on VW last year.
Pictures
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| An original streamlined model by Ferdinand Porsche in 1939. | After the war, the earlier studies were resurrected and born again as real cars. | The biggest success, however, was this little sports car, affectionately called "the bathtub". | The simple elegance became a hallmark of Porsche over the years. |
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| In Germany, Porsche even outfitted a few cars as police vehicles, more advertising than apprehension. | When it came time for Porsche to build their one-millionth car, buyers lined up offering huge piles of cash, but Porsche gave the car to the Bavarian police, in another advertising and political coup. | It was the rear-mounted "boxer" engine that powered the early Porsches to fame and the format continues today. | The Spyder gave Porsche some of the earliest victories on the race track. The combination of light weight and huge power was the key. |
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| Other race victories came along and the cars come to Zuffenhausen to retire. | My favorite was "the Pink Pig", a very wide, very-over-powered Le Mans car, with a special paint job. The entire car is divided into animal parts (example: "Hirn", meaning "brain", for the cockpit.) | Newer Porsche racing form. | |
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| This the 1996 trade show model of the car that became the Boxster. Commercially, the car re-established the brand among people (like us) who wanted the purity of the Porsche design approach, in a more affordable package. | The museum even had one of 2,800 Audis built with Porsche power, huge amounts. (I think the sign said it was the most powerful "Porsche" at the time.) It actually looks like our other car. | This tractor is an historical footnote from the post-war survival era of Porsche and Germany itself. Reportedly, it still followed the Porsche dictum of elegant simplicity. | |
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