For the true Porsche enthusiast, the nexus of the automotive universe exists on a nondescript patch of grass in the middle of a roundabout in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, Germany. The area is called Porscheplatz, literally “Porsche place.” Head 100 yards north, south, or west of the roundabout and you’ll be in Porsche Nirvana. To the west is the only factory-owned Porsche dealership, a beautiful, sprawling facility with every current model lovingly displayed. To the north is the Porsche factory where every 911 and many Boxsters are built. And to the south is the bold new Porsche Museum.

Porsche Museum
The new Porsche museum in Stuttgart, Germany, seeks to portray the concepts behind the “idea” for the legendary marque.

Opened to the public on January 31, 2009, the museum is an imposing, angular building with a design that stands in stark contrast to the cars on display inside. “The museum is like a business card for Porsche. The architecture of the building is just the opposite of the car design. The design of Porsche sports cars is very smooth and the building is very sharp. The design of the cars becomes very clear in the museum,” said Dieter Landenberger, Deputy Director of the museum and manager of the historical archive.

This isn’t the first Porsche Museum. That honor went to a modest space the company set aside inside the Porsche factory in 1976. Landenberger says that first museum was little more than a garage with 12 to 20 cars on display. Work on the new Porsche Museum began in 2004, when the company decided there was need to better communicate its history. Ground was broken in mid 2005 and construction was completed on December 8, 2008. The total cost of the project was 100 million euros, or about $120 million.
 
Porsche Museum
The lobby contains the ticket counter and windows that open to the museum’s workshop and lobby.

Porsche didn’t need to look far to fill its new facility. From its beginning in 1948, the company has kept the first and last production car built from each generation of each model. Porsche also held on to many of its significant race cars. Prior to the opening of the new museum, these historical cars were hidden, unappreciated, in factories and garages throughout Stuttgart.

As a result of this foresight, the museum owns 404 cars, 80 of which are on display in the 60,250-square-foot exhibition area at any given time. An additional 200 small exhibits greet visitors on the tour. The cars on display change periodically, mostly because the museum sends out some of its competition cars to participate in historic racing events.

Porsche Museum
This bare aluminum body is a recreation of the shell of the Type 64 race car that Ferdinand Porsche designed in 1939.

Upon entering the museum, you notice that the environment is clean and bright, thanks to the largely white color scheme. The first stop is the ticket counter, where you can also rent headphones for an audio tour. To the right of the counter you can’t help but notice the windows that look upon the museum’s workshop and the Porsche archives.

The Porsche Museum is arranged chronologically with key concepts of the “Porsche Idea” broken out as separate displays. This is expressed through characteristics of the cars, namely “Light,” “Clever,” “Fast,” “Powerful,” “Intense,” and “Consistent.”

The tour starts when visitors hop on the escalator to the second level. There, they are greeted by a bare aluminum recreation of the body from the 1939 Porsche Type 64 that company patriarch Ferdinand Porsche designed for the Berlin-Rome race. That’s nine years before Porsche built a production vehicle, but the Type 64 is an undeniable forefather and spiritual successor to what would become the Porsche brand.

Porsche Museum
The electric hub motor Porsche designed in 1900 to drive the Lohner-Porsche carriage was the first gasoline-electric hybrid and the world’s first front-wheel drive automobile.

From here, sightseers can review Porsche history prior to 1948 or move up a few steps and explore the brand after 1948. The pre-1948 display chronicles the many automotive projects that Porsche worked on before and after he opened his design and engineering concern in 1930.

The last item on display in this section is the car that led to Porsche becoming a sports car company, the 356/1 roadster. Designed by Porsche’s son, Ferdinand Anton Ernst “Ferry” Porsche, the prototype used many VW components but had a midengine layout, a tubular chassis, and a hotter version of the Beetle’s 1131cc flat four.

Porsche Museum
The first Porsche sports car, the 1948 356/1.

Continuing to the post-1948 area, visitors see a centrally located display of early Porsche road-race cars ringed by various versions of the 356 production car. Among them is a 1948 356/2—an early car built in Austria—which reverted to the rear-engine location that Porsche has stuck with since. Also shown is a powerful road-going late model, the 1962 356 B Carrera 2 cabriolet, which put out 130 bhp and could reach 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) in 9.4 seconds. 

06.11.2009