Stuttgart and the Porsche Museum/Factory

On Monday July 16 we left Munich for Zuffenhausen and the Porsche Museum/Factory with friends and fellow Porsche Club members Steve and Winnie Miller.  This is the first time we have rented/drove a car.  We went to the Hertz counter to pickup our rented/paid for car and found, of course, that the car that we had rented was not available.  So they wanted to upgrade us from a C class Mercedes to an S class or Jaguar.  This sounded somewhat appealing, since we wouldn't have to pay more for the upgrade, but in the end, I remembered that our American Express collision damage insurance only covered cars up to $50,000.  I figured that the S class and Jaguar were above this limit, so we declined.  We decided on an Opel station wagon, which was a very nice car with lots of room.  Not as stressful as driving a larger more expensive Mercedes or Jaguar.  We got out of Munich with only a few wrong turns, even with a very nice Navi system.  We had planned to stop in Augsburg, however we were later than planned, so just drove to Zuffenhausen to our Hotel.  Uneventful.  We had our usual happy hour to unwind from the grueling day and then dinner at a recommended restaurant, the Klosterkeller.

Happy Hour

Dinner at KlosterKeller with the Millers

The next day we had reservations for the Porsche Factory Tour and Museum.  The Hotel had a buffet breakfast for 13 Euros, so we opted to go to the local Aldi and got rolls, sliced meat and cheese for breakfast in our room.  Coffee and Tea were supplied so we had a nice German breakfast to start our day.  Our tour was at 10:00 and, of course, cameras were not allowed in the factory.  The operation was similar to the tour at BMW, except that the Porsche operation is all assembly with no fabrication such as stamping the body panels.  Another difference we noted was that the assembly was far more done by humans and less by machines.  Probably accounts for the higher price.

Part of Porsche Factory

Porsche Museum

After the Tour we went through the museum which was like a candy shop for Porsche owners.  They had every car from the first cars produced before the war to the latest, as well as many of the racing cars.  Very impressive indeed.  A few of the cars we saw:

Early Porsche 1939 Type 64

1912 Porsche Fire Truck

1922 Austro-Daimler Early Racer

This Would Make Gardening Fun

We spent several hours in the museum and could have spent more time.  At some point it is information overload and you see these priceless cars as just another car.  Very worthwhile all in all.