Mercedes-Benz Museum Visit

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 20^th 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.    

40-hp roadster

"Prinzess"

Sublime SSK

Uhlenhaut coupe

Has there been a better-looking Mercedes - ever??

SL

Popemobile

"How'm I supposed to steer this thing??"

F1 Safety Car

Our guide with the Carrera Panamericana SL

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!

Rekordwagen

C111

Me in Mika's car

High-speed Rennabteilung transporter - so cool

FIA Medical Car

SL rally car

The Ur-SL

Hamilton's F1 ride

Hakkinen's

Silver Arrows abounded

Hermann Lang's driving gear

heh

Maybach sans Kardashians

Clean SL for sale

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)