Stuttgart, Germany - For Porschephiles and sports car fanatics alike, the Porsche museum in Stuttgart contains a bevy of exhibits and galleries alike to tap into the car enthusiast in us. Race cars, originals, classics, legendary models – they’re all here, and you need more than a day to cover them all. Heck, since there are something like 600 models in the museum’s collection, they can’t fit them all in at once, so you may not even be able to fully cover it in one, two or three days since models are rotated in and out of the gallery. Here’s what we most remember from our visit.
1932 Austro-Daimler Bergmeister
It’s front-engined, front-wheel drive, doesn’t look like your typical Porsche and doesn’t say “Porsche” anywhere on it. Nevertheless. It’s here because even though Ferdinand Porsche had left Austro-Daimler by the time the Bergmeister was released, it was he who was instrumental in its development up to the day he left the company.
1948 356 #001
While the 356 shape may be familiar to many, take a close look at the first one and you may spot something different; there’s a little more room behind the cockpit because unlike every 356 after it (and every 911, too), this one isn’t rear-engined, but mid-engined.
While the mid-engined alignment may be inherently better in the dynamic sense, it also meant there was no room for a bench seat in the 356, which Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche wanted. Switching to rear engine did the trick, and a legend was born.
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