German Carmakers Showing It All Off

[MPowered]

Factory delivery options are nothing new for European car manufacturers, but this is getting slightly out of hand (only slightly because I love the madness that it is!). With Japanese luxury brands outranking the Germans, what do the Germans do in response? Erect gigantic structures to celebrate all things branded, and of course to allow a place for customers to come and collect their brand new German-engineered car. Yes, pedigree is something the competition doesn't have, and they're playing it up to the nth degree.

Witness BMW's newest megastructure the Welt. A building BMW describes as the St. Peter's Cathedral of automotive worship. Other manufacturers have or are planning to have similar buildings.

Full article (NY Times): http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/bu...71b0e1&ei=5090






Volkswagen:




Mercedes-Benz:




Porsche (planned):

[Donington]

Probably all designed by Brits...

[Phila]

snapped this while I was in Germany:

[ryosuke]

Probably all designed by Brits...

bmw-welt was built by vienna, austria based Coop Himmelb(l)au.
the new porsche museum is built by vienna, austria based Delugan Meissl.
autostadt is by henn from munich/berlin.
finally, ther new mercedes benz museum was designed by un-studio from the netherlands.

[D-Fence]

so, what is the point? we do it because we can. Whats wrong with that? only because Europeans have a sense of style ......

[Buba]

^ So suck it, Brits... Don't believe all the shizzle Jezza says. After all its a german who does all the F1 tracks...
I think I should check out the BMW thing eventually... Less than 100km with tons of friends in Munich and the P1 just around the corner...

[triumph]

snapped this while I was in Germany:

it could be an old smart showcase. Smart are now sold under the MB ( Daimlerchrysler bought the Smart dealerships back ), I even saw some MBs in a showcase with the smart logo still on it.

[watisdis]

so, what is the point? we do it because we can. Whats wrong with that? only because Europeans have a sense of style ......

Why are you getting so defensive? (no pun intended) Surely you don't need to excuse the German carmakers for what they're doing? I think it's great.

[ryosuke]

^ So suck it, Brits... Don't believe all the shizzle Jezza says. After all its a german who does all the F1 tracks...

ok, but he sucks really hard!

[Buba]

^ The F1 guy? Come on, hes planning like 4 city circuits right now...

[Donington]

*eats hat*

Theres a mini version of that mercedes thing as a garage in Henley with bmws, it all goes up on layers until you get to the Alpina Z8 at the top.

[ryosuke]

^ The F1 guy? Come on, hes planning like 4 ugly city circuits right now...

you forgot a word there.

[Necx0]

Indeed, Herman Tilke is ok......not exactly a genius of circuit design though.

As for the structures.....they would be pretty cool to go and see. Why not use the money to improve the cars though??

[Buba]

you forgot a word there.

Meh... One could argue
I just like the idea of city circuits, so that I don't care that much about the actual track. I guess pretty much all of us would like F1 in LeMans or especially the Ring...

[watto]

I'll be visiting the Mercedes Museum in January, can't wait! My girlfriend will be bored but I don't care.

Unfortunately, the Porsche building isn't due to be finished till mid '08, so that's annoying. Ah well, when I'm older I plan to do a 'Ring trip and then I'll see the Porsche museum!

[DarkReaper]

Sweet, so the new bmw museum is finished already or are those only "In progress" pics. I should have heard of it, afterall I only live 5km from it.

Btw Audi should seriously get its own automotive museum. The Autostadt is just a gigantic modern art gig. The pavillions there have absolutely zero information about brand history or car models. The Audi pavillion for example is just a gigantic living room with Audi adverts on the TV, an audi r8 in the bedroom and the new Audi TT in the basement. And the VW museum only has one or two Audi cars.

[sth]

Audi Forum Neckarsulm (opened in 2005):





It's next to the A6/A8/R8 factories so you can take a tour and see how the cars are made. It's really impressive and despite all the automation, there are over 13000 people working at that location alone (not counting Ingolstadt, Györ etc.).