Some Impressions from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen (Germany)

[1959scudetto]

Driving back home from our winter holiday last week, we took a 200-mile detour to Zuffenhausen for a visit of the Porsche museum which I always wanted to see. My main interest are sportsracers from the 60's and 70's and I was looking forward to seeing them in person. The only problem is that Porsche has a pool of - depending on the source - 400 (Wikipedia) to 700 (Porsche) cars , among them are about 200 race cars. In the exhibition there are between 80 and 90 cars  always on display.

So the objects vary from time to time, and I missed some of the cars I wanted to see: 910, 907, 908 and 936 were totally absent as well as some of the 917s. Nevertheless it was a wonderful experience as the models on display were marvellous, you could come quite near for making photos, and my personal highlights were the three 917s from the 1971 Le Mans race including the pink pig.

On to the pics - here are some impressions: 

Pre-war and 1940's/50's:

The 1960's (starting with the  911 2+2 prototype):

The 1970's:

The 1980's:

Spectacular installation of the 956: mounted on the ceiling just to demonstrate the calculated downforce at 200 mph (= 321 kph) which is equal to the weight of the racer. Theoretically it could drive on the ceiling from that speed upwards...

Look at the impressive race results...

On display also was the McLaren TAG-turbo of Alain Prost from 1986 (engine constructed by Hans Mezger, Porsche's motor-genius):

and finally, the 1986 Paris-Dakar desert rally participating 959 (2nd place with Jacky Ickx):

and from the 1990's onwards:

And finally the personal car of Ferdinand Porsche, which become a factory test-car ("Versuchswagen 141") after his death in 1951 and has about 250 000 miles on the odometer:

It was a rewarding experience and is highly recommended to every gearhead !!!

 

Edited March 6 by 1959scudetto

[DJMar]

There's a lot of amazing history right there, but I'm really digging the 904 and 959.

[absmiami]

I’ll be right over ….

[iamsuperdan]

Definitely somewhere I've always wanted to visit. 

What would be even more amazing is somehow getting yourself into a private tour of the "archives" and see all of the cars not on exhibit. Imagine.

[Ace-Garageguy]

That last shot of the split-windshield 356 coupe reminded me I could have bought a T-boned shell many many years back that had been run as a "mini stocker" at the Dixie Speedway in Atlanta. For $50.

I didn't have the skills to do anything with it way back then, but if I'd just stored it, I'd have made out pretty well.

[TransAmMike]

Thanks for the interesting pictures.  I've always been a Porsche fan and did own a '72  911T Targa for a few months. Had to sell it when my wife got pregnant as it was our only car and had no A/C.  Not tolerable in the high humidity in New Orleans. Loved it tho!!