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| Patent Motorwagen |
The day after our visit to the Porsche Museum we were up early and into
the car again, to drive to the other side of town to Unterturkheim and the
Mercedes-Benz Museum. If the Porsche Museum was architecturally impressive and
physically imposing, the M-B Museum takes this to another order of magnitude.
Nine storeys high and comprising 16,500 square meters of display space, the
Museum has a presence and size that befits its sponsor, the oldest automotive
manufacturer in the world. We sprung for the guided tour in English, which was
led by a very knowledgeable and personable female guide.
The tour begins with an elevator ride to
the top of the Museum and works its way down from there. The Museum galleries
are in the shape of a double-helix, the DNA of the company, as it were. At the
top, the tour starts with the first motorcars ever built – the Daimler Motor
Carriage and Benz Patent Motorwagen, both ’86 models (that’s 1886!). Galleries
are filled with immaculately presented vehicles – air- and water-going, as well
as land-based. As the tour works downwards, the history of Daimler and Benz
(and eventually, the combined company) is told, with large galleries presenting
significant cars from each major era of motoring. The early part of the 20th
century is represented by some outstanding cars, including the 1902
Mercedes-Simplex 40-hp sports model – the first car named after the daughter of
the racer and French Mercedes concessionaire, Emil Jellinek.
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| 40-hp roadster |
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| "Prinzess" |
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| Sublime SSK |
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| Uhlenhaut coupe |
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| Has there been a better-looking Mercedes - ever?? |
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| SL |
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| Popemobile |
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| "How'm I supposed to steer this thing??" |
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| F1 Safety Car |
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| Our guide with the Carrera Panamericana SL |
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| Porsche connection: 3,000hp T-80
Rekordwagen designed by Dr. P. |
The history of this proud company, in
the form of its most significant products, unfolds as you work your way down
the inner structure of the Museum. The 1920s and ‘30s saw the production of
some of the most beautiful Mercedes sports cars of all time, including the
sublime SSKL. The Museum’s example sits alongside a baroque masterpiece known
as the “Princess”. The display had a more sinister side, as well, housing an
imposing black “Grosser Mercedes” sedan of the sort favoured by high-ranking
Party officials of the Third Reich.
The Museum displays many Mercedes cars
and trucks in themed rooms devoted to “Carriers” (buses and the like),
“Helpers” (fire and emergency vehicles) and even cars belonging to famous
individuals such as politicians and movie stars (the Pope, Konrad Adenauer,
Emperor Hirohito, Princess Diana, etc.). One of the outstanding unusual
vehicles in these collections was a reproduction of the 1950s Mercedes
“Rennabteilung” high-speed streamlined race car transport truck, which carried
the famed Silver Arrows Grand Prix cars on its flat bed.
Mercedes Grand Prix cars are featured in
a banked display taking up an entire wall. Unlike the Porsche museum, which
does not feature any of the Porsche-designed pre-war Auto Union GP cars, the
Mercedes museum proudly displays its pre-war racing heritage. Race cars from
the 1920s to present (including Stirling Moss’s Targa Florio SLR and Lewis
Hamilton’s F1 Championship-winning McLaren-Mercedes) jockey for space in the
display. Periodically, the lights dim and one car is illuminated. Stereo
speakers in the walls and ceiling reverberate with the sound of the car’s own
engine, racing towards the viewer and fading into the distance, then
approaching again in a virtual “lap” of the hall. A very impressive trick!
The featured display at the Museum on
our visit celebrated 60 years of the Mercedes SL, featuring beautiful examples
of the model’s various generations, from the beautiful 1952 prototype and the
Carrera Panamericana coup with its distinctive “buzzard bars” over the
windscreen, to Uhlenhaut’s potent 300SLR coupe, to the elegant Pagoda-roofed
models of the 1960s and ‘70s, through the luxurious ‘80s and ‘90s all the way
to the present. A few dead-ends are displayed too, like the bizarre
“twin-joystick” steering system that replaced the steering wheel in one
prototype!
Aside from the cars, the Museum
incorporates a few other neat gimmicks, such as the half-cutaway McLaren
Mercedes F1 car that visitors can sit in for pictures. The Museum also houses a
“driving simulator” – an enclosed cockpit mounted on hydraulic rams with a wide
screen inside, that takes a visitor on a nausea-inducing thrill ride in
Mercedes racing cars, including a very bumpy ride in a rallying SL.
A visit to the Museum is highly
recommended, especially if you can arrange an English tour; our guide was
excellent and very knowledgeable. Of course the Museum includes a comprehensive
gift shop and conveniently adjoins a Mercedes dealership!
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| Rekordwagen |
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| C111 |
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| Me in Mika's car |
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| High-speed Rennabteilung transporter - so cool |
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| FIA Medical Car |
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| SL rally car |
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| The Ur-SL |
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| Hamilton's F1 ride |
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| Hakkinen's |
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| Silver Arrows abounded |
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| Hermann Lang's driving gear |
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| heh |
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| Maybach sans Kardashians |
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| Clean SL for sale |
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After
leaving the Museum, we toured Burg Hohenzollern, a wonderful old castle, and
took a walk around the picturesque medieval university town of Tubingen. The
next day we took the autobahn to our next stop, the ancient city of Trier. More
on that next time, along with a report on our trip to (and laps of) the
Nurburgring Nordschliefe!
(a version of this story will appear in "Red River Ramblings", the local Porsche Club of America newsletter)
