Old school New England 92 - Scanorama

AUTOBAHN
Spinning wheels: The
rotating car lift at the
Audi museum
It is the afternoon rush hour on a jam-packed autobahn
between Ingolstadt and Stuttgart when we
notice them: five men on a bridge, sitting in folding
chairs with cameras and binoculars at the ready.
These are not train or plane spotters, but car spotters.
There’s no mistaking Germans’ interest in cars,
or their pride in them. Factories and museums line
the country’s expressways.
“Collecting” unusual car models is not altogether unlike
birding. An old Horch from 1938 is entered in the notebook,
along with a record of where it was sighted. But it’s not just
about the classics. If you want to catch a glimpse of a prototype,
the obvious hunting grounds are the stretches of autobahn
within the Golden Triangle of the German car industry,
Munich-Ingolstadt- Stuttgart. This is where they test and refine
coming models.
German car factories produced six million cars during 2010,
with the German marques’ overseas plants making another 5.5
million.
There are over 200 car museums with more than 15,000 vehicles
on display in this car-crazy country. So you have to find a
way to stand out. In recent years, the big brands have invested
billions in museums to their own histories, to attract both new
buyers and devotees. They have also confirmed southern Germany
as the true heart of the car world.
LIKE ANY OTHER TEENAGER, Eric Hemphill is somewhat embarrassed
when his mother flamboyantly climbs onto a motorbike.
He’s more interested in the shiny new BMW M3 a bit further
on. Eric and his family are guests of BMW’s very own Disneyland
and have come here from Philadelphia. Eric has Hodgkin’s
disease, a form of lymphatic cancer, and got this trip through
the Make a Wish foundation. While other teenagers dream of
meeting rock stars or sporting heroes, Eric’s wanted to visit the
BMW Museum in Munich.
“I’m a big BMW fan. Sure, Mercedes is cool too, but there’s
something sporty and modern about BMW. Something that
Amer ican cars don’t have anymore.”
The BMW Museum, right beside the Munich Olympic Park,
is the granddaddy of German car museums. The Austrian architect
Karl Schwanzer, whose works include Austria’s spectacular
embassy in Brasília, designed the bowl-shaped building which
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44 DECEMBER 2011/JANUARY 2012 SCANORAMA