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BERLIN - The German car industry may be on its knees but Porsche, a company that takes pride in its motto "nothing is impossible" will cock a corporate snook at its detractors today by unveiling a 100 million ($250 million) museum dedicated to promoting the glory of its iconic sports cars.
Even before today's inauguration, the new building, located next to the company's headquarters at Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart, has been nicknamed the "Porsche Cathedral".
It contains more steel than the Eiffel Tower and a "rolling exhibition" of some 300 cars that can be started up in situ. The giant glass and steel building sits perched on three metal columns which enables it to "float" 15m above ground.
Inside, a cavalcade of sports cars, some brightly coloured and dating back to the late 1930s, are presented like giant sweets in an outsize, glistening white chocolate box that covers 5575sq m of floor space.
"The exhibition halls have been kept almost completely white, because the elements of colour are provided by the cars themselves," explained the museum's director Achim Stejskal.
The vault-like interior of the museum is equipped with elevators, gently inclining ramps, a roof terrace, seminar rooms, sophisticated car workshops and a gourmet restaurant.
The museum was meant to open last year for the Porsche company's 60th anniversary. But the building has been completed months later than planned, at the start of a deepening recession and costing double the 50 million originally earmarked for the project.
Roman Delugan, one of the project's chief architects said: "The idea is to raise Porsche's glorious history above its day-to-day existence. The cars are raised to the heights of glorification."
His partner, Elke Delugan-Meissl, was just as enthusiastic about the project and insisted that both architects' intention had been to "unleash emotions". "Visitors," she insisted, "would be sucked into its space and enjoy a personal, emotional experience," while looking at the cars.
Klaus Bischof, the museum's co-director and an experienced car mechanic himself, said the museum faced stiff criticism when the project was first mooted. "Many people thought we were crazy and said a museum like this was impossible," he explained. "But for us at Porsche the term impossible does not exist. That is why we went for the design and the concept."
The main part of the exhibition contains 80 Porsche designs including the original 1930s Volkswagen Beetle conceived by Ferdinand Porsche himself.
All of the cars in the museum are kept in perfect running order and are maintained to compete in vintage motor rallies and car shows worldwide. A stable of racing cars, more than 150 silver trophies and an automated flashing script containing key quotes from top drivers is meant to underline Porsche's prowess as a grand prix car manufacturer with more than 28,000 trophies under its belt.
- INDEPENDENT
