Day 40     Thursday, October 9, 2025

After spending yesterday at the Mercedes Museum, what better way to spend today than at another car museum.  There is no such thing as “too many car museums” in our tour book! Today we go to the Porsche Museum and end the day with a tour of the Porsche 911 production factory.

In 1898 Ferdinand Porsche built an electric car (called the C2 Phaeton) with the motor suspended above the rear axle.  Its range was 80 km and its top speed was 35 kph. The car was built in Vienna.

The Lohner-Porsche ‘Semper Vivus’ from 1900 was the first hybrid vehicle with a gas engine that powered an electric generator supplying power to the electric motors mounted in the front wheel hubs. 

Ferdinand Porsche joined Gottlieb Daimler in 1923 as Technical Director and helped develop the supercharger motors in Stuttgart.  He left the company in 1929 as his idea for a small light-weight Mercedes-Benz was not popular with the Board of Directors.

At the 1933 Berlin Motor Show Adolf Hitler announced his intention to motorize the nation, with every German owning either a car (or a tractor!).  In 1934 Porsche received a contract from Hilter to built a people’s car (Volkswagen).  Prototypes were produced before World War II but full production did not start until after the war.  Over 21 million Volkswagens (Type 1 – the Beetle) were produced before production ended in 2003.

Porsche’s love was designing, building and driving racing cars,  This 1939 Porsche Type 64 Prototype was built of aluminum and had a top speed of 140 kph from a 1.1 litre engine.  

After World War II ended, Porsche and his son Ferry continue to develop sport cars. In 1947 the Porsche 356 Roadster was produced as the first vehicle bearing the Porsche name. 

Trudy liked the paint job on this car, done by an Australian artist in 1998 for Porche’s 50th Anniversary.  Graham Ronnie Biggibilla transferred one of his paintings by hand onto this 911 Carrera. Somewhere hidden in the paint job is his signature.

In 1970, this Porsche 917 set records at the ’24 Hours of LeMans’ with an average lap speed of 240 km/h.

Not to be outdone, both Trudy and Bob attempt to set their own fast lap times.  Bob crashed twice with a fastest time of 256 km/h.  Trudy didn’t crash and raced at 180 km/h.

This version of Sally Carrera, a Porsche 911 was developed in conjunction with the “Cars” movie of 2006. A 2023 911 GT3 “Shark” that looks like a giant shark.

A promotional LEGO Porsche from 2018.

Not only are the cars expensive, the car models are similarly priced.The highlight of the day was the tour of the Porsche 911 Production Plant, shown in the background.  No pictures are allowed in the plant, but Trudy found this photo on the Porsche site advertising their Factory Tour. 9000 people work at the Stuttgart plant producing the Porsche 911 (in 2 shifts per day) and the Porsche Cayman (1 shift per day).  Up to 250 Porsche 911’s are produced every day. There are 137 work stations that have less than 3 minutes to complete their task before the cars move along the assembly line.  We got to see the tail-end of the assembly, after the motor and suspension had been ‘married’ to the body.  Most Porsches are custom ordered, even the color of thread used for the upholstery can be changed. Robotics move the cars along the assembly line, turning, raising and tipping the car for easy assembly.  Robotic carts move parts along a guided path to the next work station. As one robotic cart passed by us, a screw fell off the wagon so we picked it up and took it home.  We hope it wasn’t a structural piece. The top connecting walkway is how robotics move the painted bodies from the Paint Shop (on the right)  to the Assembly Building (on the left). We were there for five hours and the time flew by.

Trudy here…I tried drawing my very first car ever, and I decided that drawing cars is much more difficult than drawing people!  No photo…it was that bad!