Attractive Gateway to Porsche TraditionNew Museum on Porscheplatz
Stuttgart. Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG of Stuttgart is to get a new museum. The company has announced that it is to occupy new building directly on Porscheplatz in Zuffenhausen, and add to the attractive complex of urban buildings already there, which includes the production plant itself, the sales subsidiary with its showroom and the high-bay warehouse. Construction work is due to start next year; an architects’ competition is currently being prepared.
With its decision in favor of a new museum building, the Porsche Executive Board has responded to wishes frequently expressed by shareholders at the annual general meetings and also those of customers and historic car enthusiasts interested in the sports cars of previous eras. The current museum is capable of displaying about twenty such cars, but the new museum is to display some 80 vehicles and will be a genuine public attraction. A workshop for these often unique and extremely valuable cars will enable visitors to study the skills that go into their restoration. The new building will be rounded off by generous catering and refreshment facilities that will also increase its appeal as a venue for events held by internal departments and external organizations. The Porsche Museum currently calls about 300 cars its own, but lack of space means that those which have been restored can only be exhibited according to a rota system. For this reason they are also driven at various external historic-car events, so that a wider public can obtain a picture of Porsche tradition and its significance. This “mobile museum” function is to remain a feature of Porsche’s historic car activities in the future.
The history of this sports-car manufacturer with its head offices in the Stuttgart suburb of Zuffenhausen is indeed an impressive one: For more than a hundred years the Porsche name has not only been inseparably linked with automobile development but has also exerted a major influence on it. Innovative designs such as the electric-motor wheel hub – a sensation at the Paris World Exposition in 1900 – or fundamental developments such as the car that became the Volkswagen “Beetle” are examples of the pioneering achievements of the company’s founders and engineers.
It was not until 1948 that Porsche sports cars began to be built, and made the brand, the product and the company world-famous. Innumerable race victories have aroused the enthusiasm of millions of people and made the Porsche name synonymous with fascinating sports cars. Today, with an output of about 75,000 cars annually, the company is not only the smallest independent automobile manufacturer in the world but also one of the most successful of all, a fact that derives to no small extent from its unique tradition.
Porsche’s President and Chief Executive Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking comments: “Our heritage is an honor and a commitment at one and the same time – but a commitment that Porsche willingly accepts. In the new museum, tradition will have an assured place and come to life more vividly than ever before. The new museum will be far more than a place to look back at the past and preserve a record of earlier achievements. It will be a functional center that groups together all our historic and contemporary knowledge about Porsche.”
Until Porsche’s historic car collection can occupy these new premises, the existing museum in Zuffenhausen will remain open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at weekends.
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02.08.2004