Germany Part 3 - Stuttgart, The Porsche Museum

After lunch at the Mercedes Museum, we drove to the nearby Porsche Museum!  They're not too far from each other, which was good because we'd spent a lot more time at the Mercedes Museum than we had thought we would since it was so incredible and we wanted to make sure we were able to get through Porsche.  We didn't really need to worry because the Porsche Museum was a) much smaller, b) less informative, and c) in the midst of the Porsche 911 50th Anniversary, so that was pretty much the only car on display.  Don't get me wrong, the cars were gorgeous!  But after the Mercedes Museum, the overall content was a bit of a let down.  They covered the technical evolution of the cars, mainly of the 911, and didn't really get much into historic context.  Nonetheless, we still had to follow S around and wipe his drool off the floor....

My favorite part was the old cars (my dream car is a Porsche Speedster....) and S and K had to assume drool wiping duties for me in this section.  They were SO PRETTY!  This section only totalled maybe 10 cars, though, so it was unfortunately short lived...

One of the interesting parts of the 50's anniversary ode to the 911 was the inclusion of 50 facts about the 911 stuck down along the floors of the museum.  The one above was my favorite - "The first Porsche Turbo driver in the world is a woman" - awesome!  We also made S pick out his favorite 911 model from the past 50 years - it took him over 10 minutes to decide and then after we took this picture he said "no, no, I changed my mind, I think I'd pick this one instead" and pointed to the red one just over his right shoulder.  His obsession with cars knows few bounds...

The only reprieve from the 911 exhibit (with the exception of the vintage cars) was the race cars.  I don't know if you can tell, but in the 3rd picture the race car is actually attached to the ceiling above us - I guess the aerodynamics of the car could actually allow for it to function upside down at high speeds!  In the fourth picture the third car was pretty interesting - it was painted pink and sectioned off with dashed lines like a livestock animal would be - it is referred to as the Pink Pig...

There were a number of other small supplementary exhibits as well including schematics, engines, trophies won by Porsche race cars, and my favorite in the fourth picture.  The Porsche cars have certainly evolved over time, but they haven't really grown significantly. The car illuminated in the picture is one of the first Porsche cars made and you can see the outer black sketch lines detailing the outline of modern Porsche cars.

After we toured through the cars, we naturally hit up the gift shop.  Their offerings were sort of odd - almost more art museum type souvenirs than car museum type.  We also decided to walk across the street to the Porsche dealership to ogle what we can't afford and see if their Porsche store over there had any better options.  On the way we tried to get a selfie of the three of us in the reflective panels that covered the outside of the Museum.

After the Porsche Museum we headed back to our hotel for a quick nap and then went out to dinner at this fantastic Wine Stube in downtown Stuttgart that was built inside some sort of castle tower.  The food was really tasty and K and I were definitely digging the Reisling!

Coming up next, a leisurely morning, a beautiful drive, and day 1 of the Black Forest!

Germany Part 3 - Stuttgart, the Mercedes Museum

Our Stuttgart portion of the trip was pretty much all about the car museums, Mercedes and Porsche to be exact.  After a tasty little breakfast at the inn we were staying in, we slogged through the rain and drove first to the Mercedes Museum (since we were only going to Museums, the rain really didn't bother us much.  Better then than one of our outdoor hiking days!), which is situated much like the Guggenheim Museum in NY where you start at the top of the museum and spiral down.  Surprisingly to us, this was by far one of our favorite museums of the trip as the format of the museum combined the beautiful Mercedes cars with the timeline of major events happening in the world and how the company adjusted to the times.  It was very well done!

Here is the trip to the top floor in a very sci-fi design elevator with our extremely informative English headsets on - you just pointed at a designator symbol and could get extended history on the technologies/designs.

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The first part of the exhibit detailed the history of the invention and evolution of the motor as well as vehicles in which the motor was used including flying contraptions.  The early motors used a fuel called Benzinum (see 3rd picture in the set above) which could only be obtained at local hotels, grocery markets, and restaurants in small glass bottles.

And here's the money shot - the first model named a "Mercedes".  She was a beaut!

The early models were actually quite complex and large for such a new technology.  And boy were they pretty!  I'm sure the actuality of driving on dirt roads didn't leave them looking so pretty after a trip or two...  The museum also had these also side rooms that had "off topic" vehicles, if you will - some were filled with modes of Mercedes Benz built mass/work transportation while others had "famous" Mercedes cars like the popemobile.

Being fairly non-religious and a Jew to boot, I had no clue there was even a vehicle made called the "pope-mobile" and I was rather entertained by it. The second floor down along the spiral was my favorite:

Check out those gorgeous cars from the roaring 20s!  That first red one makes my heart flutter a bit - so gorgeous.

The next floor down was pretty impressive too - you know I love me some 50's/60's mid century design!  S was having a crush moment himself when he saw that silver 300 series model with the gull wing doors.

The floor with the modern cars wasn't all that exciting (what happened to beautifully designed mostly-affordable cars?? They're so boring now....) but the bottom floor had S's racing adrenaline going again and he was in his element - nearly a century of race cars!!!

We finished off our Mercedes Museum trip with a quick stop at their cafe for some lunch, my favorite part being the rather large raspberry linzer cookies with a Mercedes logo in the center.  I was probably bit too obsessed (tasted good too!)  And then we made the obligatory stop in the gift shop.  It was also one of the better gift shops we were in (though naturally pricy) and we got some great souvenirs.  Coming up next: the Porsche Museum!