11 Feb 2009

Adil Jal Darukhanawala gets all starry-eyed taking in the most important and successful Porsches of all time housed under one tremendous roof a.k.a. the Porsche Museum, just next door to Porsche plant 1 at Porscheplatz in Stuttgart!

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It was like I had stumbled into the chamber of riches akin to what confronted Ali Baba in the cave of the 40 thieves. Of course there was a mighty big difference: I had known and read  - and sometimes seen a few - of these riches but here they were - over 83 of them from a collection of over 400 delectable automotive objet d'art lovingly made for the express purpose of going fast, both in competition and on normal roads.

German sportscar supremo and now de facto owner of the Volkswagen Group, Porsche lined up an exclusive viewing of it's the iconic cars which bore not just its stamp and name but also those which its illustrious founder created for other makes. To an unashamed Porschephile like yours truly it was a place to go worshipping at the altar of high performance motoring but even more significant was the fact that it rammed home the point that the name Porsche has been intrinsically linked to the development of the automobile right from its very infant stage in the first years of the last century!

Further more, to those who make it a point to marvel at creativity and design; one couldn't get more Teutonic in the form and structure of the 5600 square metre edifice which resides in Stuttgart absolutely next to the very factory which churns out the iconic 911. In fact it is fitting that Porsche should build just as daring and bold a monument as its peerless sculptures on wheels to house its eclectic collection of historic sports cars and racing machinery. And given the fact that all German car majors have been on a museum crafting spree, it was inevitable that after Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, an all new and larger museum was what Porsche needed. More than the four other marques named above, Porsche had just a sliver of hall to display about six to eight of its historical gems and this was massively inadequate given the rich history of the automotive genius that was Dr Ferdinand Porsche.

The Porsche museum is not just about cars collected and stocked in an elegant manner for all to see from a distance. In line with the philosophy of the firm which prides itself on the all round useability of its high performance cars, the museum holds about 83 cars from Porsche's collection of almost 400 units and all these 400 vehicles are in prime running order, in fact ready to race if we have to clearly hint at their turnout. No static pieces for Porsche, every car is a runner barring the 1947 Type 360 Cisitalia 1.5-litre 16-cylinder four-wheel drive F1 car and the 1939 Porsche Type 64 racer made exclusively for the Berlin - Rome road race. However as Klaus Bischoff, curator of the museum informed, both these cars are being looked at closely to make them into runners. And helping them in this task would be the actual blueprints and manufacturing process sheets in the extensive Porsche archives which are housed in the museum itself in a unique library which any one can use, after making an appointment of course.

I liked the thought behind the museum according to Klaus Bischoff: "Porsche cars do not grow old. Instead, they become classics still suited in every respect for road use." I think this dictum holds good even for the company's products and that is why all the exhibits in the museum are actual runners which are also used extensively the whole year round on various historic car and retro sports car events under Porsche's Museum on Wheels programme. In fact many of us missed out on just such an opportunity when Porsche flew in the actual 1964 French Grand Prix winning F1 car of Dan Gurney to India last year!