the wonderful Wolfsburg AutoMuseum…

Making the most of the Wolfsburg AutoMuseum

I wanted to make the most of my stay in Wolfsburg, so after a nice evening chatting with a couple from Belgium staying overnight in their cool Early Bay camper at the Autostadt, it was time for another early start for me. It was time to go back and visit the Stiftung AutoMuseum Volkswagen, yep another day, another car museum!

The museum is literally a couple of minutes drive (it’s actually a walkable distance) from the Autostadt, so I arrived nice and early – time to make my breakfast before the doors opened!

Great German customer service

When the manager of the museum arrived for work, he smiled to see my bus first in the car park. He popped over and said the museum would be opening soon, so would I like a cup of coffee whilst I wait? How is that for great customer service! 🙂

A different type of museum to the massive scale of the Autostadt that mixes cars, restaurants, Architecture and landscape altogether, here things are more intimate in scale, so well worth a visit as they have some really cool cars and exhibits on display! 🙂

What a collection of cars

In the era of limited production runs and real craftsmanship, some of the car designs were quirky, innovative and some were just simply stunning!

It was good to see a range of different cars from different countries and designers represented in the museum. They also had a range of interesting prototypes including an early Barndoor Panel van with its non-production square rear tailgate window design, über rare!

Classics through to futuristic concept cars

How about the more futuristic, award-winning design of the Volkswagen XL1 Super Efficient Vehicle (SEV) concept car with a claimed 313 mpg on the combined cycle while emitting 21 g/km of CO2 to set a new benchmark for vehicle efficiency! Powering the XL1 is a compact 800 cc TDI two-cylinder common rail diesel engine developing 48 PS. It’s linked to an electric motor producing 27 PS, resulting in a total of 75 PS – a modest output yet more than enough when the low kerb weight (795 kg) of the vehicle is taken into account. The electric motor can either work independently of the TDI engine or in tandem when accelerating. Accelerating from rest to 62 mph can be achieved in 11.9 seconds; the electronically limited top speed is 99 mph.

Things have certainly moved on from their original air-cooled flat-four engine/gearbox roots!

Classic Wolfsburg photo opportunity

It was nice to bump into some people who I know who had also come from the Hessisch Oldendorf HO17 show. Wolfsburg suddenly had an influx of vintage VW’s on the streets! 🙂 A friend reminded me about trying to find a decent vantage point to get a picture of the bus in front of the iconic four brick chimneys of the original VW Wolfsburg factory. So after my time at the museum, I went for a little drive… Once again, thanks to some friendly officials, I was let past some barriers to quickly get a memento shot from my time in Wolfsburg. I suspect it is something they get asked fairly frequently! Still, it was very kind of them and nice to get a visual souvenir from my time here. Now my bus has been in front of the new car towers of the Autostadt, as well as the original factory chimneys!

It was a bit late in the afternoon to push on to somewhere new, so I decided to stay another night in the very handy camper zone of the Autostadt. In the grounds of the Autostadt centre, they have a brilliant riverside cafe/bakery, perfect location to enjoy some afternoon sunshine and catch up with a bit of blog writing. As I was gazing out over the canal musing over what to write, this happened…

Some of these barges even had cars at the back of them behind the control cabin. I assume this was so they had transport to get around on land when they docked? Not something you see every day!

Hmmm, fresh bread!

I bought a freshly baked baguette to top up my supplies and tapped away on the keyboard as the sun began to go down. Nice way to end a couple of days at Wolfsburg 🙂 Tomorrow would be another early start as I push on to somewhere new… If you’re not maxed out with cars, then here’s a selection of some of the other cool stuff on display at the Stiftung AutoMuseum Volkswagen that caught my eye…

More cars from the Wolfsburg AutoMuseum for you to enjoy…

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