One of Munich’s architectural highlights, the BMW Museum stands right next to the world famous BMW Group Head Office Four-Cylinder Building. It was here that the Chairman of the Board of Management of the BMW Group, Dr. Norbert Reithofer, officially reopened the Museum last week.
He highlighted the importance of tradition for the company: “Awareness of our heritage, the experiences and developments that our company has been through give us direction, power and inspiration for our work,” he said.
After a two and a half year refurbishment project, visitors can look forward to more than 120 exhibits in museum space covering 5,000 square metres. They will be presented in a completely new exhibition concept.
The circular museum will continue to be a landmark and a sought-out destination for car lovers from across Europe and the world. The adjacent low-level building now complements the ‘Bowl’ - as the circular museum building has been designated ever since it was opened in 1973. This has entailed increasing the available floor space five-fold. The museum will open its doors to the public this coming Saturday, 21 June 2008 from 10.00.
As guest of honour, Dr. Norbert Reithofer welcomed Eberhard von Kuenheim, who as Chairman of the Board of Management opened the museum in 1973. Although the exhibition has changed since then, the philosophy of the museum remains the same:
“A BMW Museum has to present living corporate heritage. And it must show how BMW defines the future, on the basis of concrete objects,” Dr Reithofer said.
The future was presented in an unusual way at the opening ceremony: 350 apprentices of the BMW Group surprised guests as representatives of the upcoming generation who would shape the history of the BMW Group, and themselves create new vehicles that will one-day be exhibited with pride in the Museum.
Plenty of car companies have been known to buy back some of their historic models in order to preserve their history and display them in their museums. When Toyota tried to find their first car (the Toyota AA) they found there was none left possibly due to Japans love of crushing outdated cars for the latest model and the fact that only 1400 were build from 1936 till 1943. The next plan was to create a replica of the car but as a full set of plans were not available the replica was built from what plans could be found from over the models lifetime. Today the replica that was built for Toyotas 50th anniversary sits in Toyota’s automobile museum in Nagoya Japan. While the car may not be exactly like the one you could buy in the late 30’s to early 40’s it is pretty darn close to what the real thing would have looked like if there was still one around.
The Deutsches Technikmuseum or Museum of Technology a enjoyable and educational journey with some amazing examples of German technology on show. Built in the former goods yard of Anhalter Guterbahnholf a railway yard the museum has huge pavilions of planes, trains, cars, boats a planetarium and even a brewery. The museum also features some interesting production areas where you can see actual craftsman make suitcases, rolled jewelry and printing. The museum is set over four sites all within a few minutes walk and only about 10 minutes walk from Potsdamer Plaz. The vintage car depot is a must for any car buffs, here you will see a collection of over 100 historic German cars, some very rare while others familiar. The railway yard has dozens of beautiful examples of railway stock all magnificently restored to their former glory while the aviation and space flight atrium has some very interesting military and civilian aircraft.
Situated in the beautiful wine country of South Australia lies the National Motor Museum at Birdswood. This incredible collection of vehicles traces the importance of transportation in Australia over the last 100 years. Opening in 1965 the centre is not only a museum but a research centre, a place of preservation and an important education tool for the young. The new Holden Pavilion of Australian Motoring offers 3700 square metres of some of Australia’s most important motoring icons including a 45 metre long road train and some very impressive fire engines and commercial vehicles. The centre has traveling exhibitions and some of very interesting examples of important Australian automotive milestones including the a prototype Mitsubishi Magna, a prototype VN series Holden Monaro and the Torana GTR-X developed for the Sydney Motor Show a few years ago.
Official Website: http://www.history.sa.gov.au/motor/about.htm
The much anticipated new BMW museum the BMW Welt has just opened in Munich and is one of the world’s most amazing archetectual spaces as our You Tube video will show you. The Welt is more than a museum it is also a distribution point where you can pick up your spanking new BMW. Designed by Coop Himmelb the facility took nearly four years to construct using some amazing construction techniques. The huge roof is home to over 3600 solar panels and many other substainable items are used in the structure. The facility includes the premium lounge for new car owners, a public gallery, conference suite and children’s center. The huge Double Cone will act as a media dome for exhibitions and events accommodating up to 450 people. BMW anticipates over 800,000 visitors per year.
Elvis Presley the king of rock and roll spent some time in the US army during the 1950’s and was stationed in Germany for a while. During that time he worked with a M59 armoured personnel carrier which is today on display at the Sinsheim Auto & Technic museum in Sinsheim Germany. The amphibious tank was made from 1954 to 1960 and about 6300 units were produced. The tank was built out of armour plating which was in places 25 mm thick and was powered by two GMC model 302 six cylinder petrol engines which could do 146hp at 3600 rpm. The fuel consumption wasn’t too good with only a capability of 190 km from its 511 litre fuel tank. It could do about 50 kph on the road and just under 7 k per hour on water. The machine was designed and manufactured by the Food machinery and chemical corporation in the USA.
MOTAT is the largest transport and technology museum in New Zealand with over 40 acres of exhibitions. Opening in 1964 the centre is built on a site where a pump station pumped water from Western Springs to the centre of Auckland. The centre has hours of educational entertainment for all ages, there’s an activities centre with over 20 displays including a huge Hand’s on Science Centre. There are all forms of road transportation, trams, railway stock, aviation, military, busses you name it- if it moves they have it. Some of the more notable items in their collection include the only Solent Mark IV Flying Boat in the world and one of only a handful of WW2 Avro Lancaster Bombers in the world, the first chilled beer tanker in the World and Billy T James’ 1954 Chevrolet. MOTAT also has one of the largest fire engine collections in the world. A very impressive collection indeed.
The Queen Mary is one of the few pre world war 2 ocean liners to survive to this day. Originally used as an ocean liner from 1936 to 1967 the RMS Queen Mary was at one point the fastest way to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Ocean liner business was huge in those days but after the war when long distant faster aircraft developed numbers on the pre war ship dwindled and she was finally retired in 1967. Fortunately she was saved from the scrap heap like many grand ships before her. The city of Long Beach in California wanted to set up a maritime museum and what better building to do it in than a ship with such a grand history. Today much of the ship has been converted into museum, hotel or function facilities. The attraction has had a chequered past of financial success but its future looks bright with a new company recently taking over the lease with plans to refurbish. One interesting thing to note is that the new Queen Mary 2 has been fitted with one of her original horns.
Today’s video is a promo video of the de Havilland Comet. This one is one of those classic news real type footage of a real classic jet. Launched in 1949 the Comet was the first passenger jet plane and was tipped to be the next big thing, sadly today it is often forgotten about, thanks to the dominance of Boeing. What went wrong was a series of accidents caused by the planes tearing apart in mid flight, the stress fractures were traced back to the design of the large square windows and by the time de Havilland managed to get its aircraft back in the air with modified windows, Boeing had already gained a strong foothold in the jet airline business with it’s 707. Boeing had learned from the Comets mistakes while the Comet lost consumer confidence. The Military version known as the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod is still in use until 2020. Only a handful of Comets survive today a good example is at the RAF Museum in Cosford in the UK, it’s the only Comet 1 in existence. A Comet 4 is also under restoration for future display at the excellent Museum of flight in Washingtion.
The H-4 Hercules was an aircraft built by Howard Hughes during world war 2, The idea behind it was to ship large amount of cargo across the Atlantic safely above German war ships. The whole project ran overtime and over budget and by the time the only prototype flew in 1947 the war was over and funding was cancelled. The media nicknamed the plane the Spruce Goose because of this and the fact that it was made of wood as there was no metal available because of the war. Howard Hughes hated the nickname and set it out on its only flight just to prove a point, amazingly for a prototype aircraft of its age and huge size it remain cared for and in hidden storage until 1980 where it spent some time next to the Queen Mary. Since 1995 its home has been the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon which is an hour southwest of Portland. The museum has a good range of other aircraft that are well worth checking out too.Website of the Evergreen Aviation Museum
