Photos: A spin through the new Porsche Museum
The iconic German automaker finally unveils a serious answer to Galleria Ferrari. The museum, part of the Porsche headquarters in Germany, will open its doors to the public starting Saturday.
Porsche Museum
While Ferrari fans have had a splashy museum in Maranello, Italy, to make pilgrimages to for years, Porsche fans have had to be satisfied with a small 20-car rotating exhibit near the company factory. Not anymore. The new Porsche Museum at Porsche's headquarters in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, Germany, is set to open Saturday.
On Wednesday, the press and VIPs got a sneak peek at the interior, which contains 5,600 square meters of exhibition space, as well as a restaurant, a rooftop terrace, a Porsche Archive library, conference facilities, a Porsche workshop where mechanics tinker with cars, and a museum shop that will at times offer collectors items.
Porsche Museum
The museum building, designed by Roman Delugan from Delugan Meissl Associated Architects in Vienna, Austria, touches the ground at only three points and so appears to be floating.
Delugan's design was chosen from a competition Porsche ran in 2005.
Porsche Museum
Inside, visitors are first introduced to the basics. The foyer, with info on tickets, audio guides, and facility info, features a giant glass wall looking into the Porsche Museum workshop. As they wait to enter the main exhibit areas, visitors can watch Porsche mechanics tinkering with the cars that make up the exhibitions .
The museum plans to offer admission from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time Tuesdays through Sundays for 8 euros ($10.35) per adult and free for children under 14 with an adult.
Porsche Museum
Porsche has in its possession about 400 racing and sports cars, which it plans to rotate through the museum in the coming years.
But where to start? "The Prologue--Porsche before 1948" exhibit features cars such as the VW Beetle and Austro-Daimler Sascha, as well as early Porsches.
Porsche Museum
Porsche refers to Type 64, the "Berlin-Rome car," as "the ancestor of all Porsche sports cars."
Porsche Museum
Porsche Museum
The Targa Florio exhibit shows cars that have made it through the Targa Florio, a famous long-distance, open-road endurance race through the mountains of Sicily.
It includes the Porsche 718 W-RS Spyder (1962) (bottom left) and the Porsche 718 RS 60 Spyder, (1960) (bottom right).