We arrived in Stuttgart yesterday afternoon via train and saw a bit of the area around the train station and our hotel. The reason for the stop in Stuttgart was to see the Porsche and Mercedes factories and museums. A few weeks before the trip I realized that the museums were closed on Mondays – the only day we’d be in town. I emailed Porsche and Mercedes and we got on their factory tour lists, but the times overlapped so Porsche won.

I have a 1997 911 Cabriolet with over 100,000 miles on it. I love this car, it’s my daily driver. It surprised me, though, how excited I became when the taxi dropped us off in front of the Porsche museum to meet for our tour. I get now why BMW owners get teary eyed when their new car shows up in BMW Welt. Crazy isn’t it?

I hope not.

The museum opened earlier this year, the Google map image of it still shows dirt. I wish I could talk about how great it was inside. Sigh. Ahh, but the factory… That was amazing.

The very first thing that happens on the factory tour is they make you check your cameras and phones – absolutely no pictures are allowed.

I wrote down pages of notes afterwards, and I’ll share a few highlights here. (National Geographic did a show in 2010 about the Porsche factory, some segments are on YouTube if you want to see it more in depth.) The two hour tour starts in the engine assembly building, then visits the interior line followed by the body assembly and marriage (body and chassis) line.

• Parts are delivered to the lines by robots – we had to step aside occasionally to let them pass, though they will stop and wait for you to move. The factory only has a five hour backlog of parts on hand.
• The engine assembly line is shared by people and robots, with robots doing the mundane but precise work and people doing work that is more variable. There is a five minute break every hour, after each break people move to a different task. Everyone on the line is trained to do every job – at the end of the day they can say “I build Porsche engines,” instead of “I install crankshafts.” They all have technical degrees and go through a three year apprenticeship. The line makes every variation of the flat 6 engine.
• The body line makes every type of 911 and every variation of them (like left vs. right hand drive). The cars are intermingled with proper parts following each one around on robotic transports. You’ll see a left hand drive Carrera S followed by a right hand drive Turbo Cabriolet.
• The rims are conical to direct air and heat to the outside to assist in cooling the brakes. That’s why my rims are always dirty. It’s a good thing!
• Trivia! Coming off the line, the Porsche shield on the wheel hub points to the tire valve. (WARNING: blog post time warp ahead…) When I got home I checked mine and they were misaligned. Damn local mechanics. I fixed them and felt like the cool kid on the block. Two days later they aren’t aligned anymore – they really aren’t all that tight.

There’s a ton more of interesting manufacturing details from the line. If you want to hear all about it I can be had for the price of a beer.

After the Porsche tour we took a taxi to the Mercedes-Benz Classic car building. This is the equivalent to the BMW collection that we visited in Munich. They maintain all the Mercedes for the museum and will help you acquire and maintain a classic Mercedes if you so desire. With the M-B factory tour at the wrong time and the museum closed on Mondays, this was our best shot at some authentic Stuttgart Mercedes face time.

Closed?!? I don’t understand.

And that brings us to our last night in Europe. We longed for an authentic German meal. Lucky for us a Stuttgart police officer saw us staring at a map in the train station trying to figure out what line to take back to the hotel – he generously offered to help after bumping Jason’s arm and scaring the crap out of him. During our police escort back to the hotel we asked him where we could get some authentic German food in the area. He thought for a long time and confessed that Stuttgart isn’t really a great dining town and we’d be better off going for Turkish or Indian food. We thanked him profusely.

Undeterred, we headed to what used to be the old town part of Stuttgart. “Used to be” because 70% of Stuttgart was destroyed in WWII by 186,000 aerial bombs. We found a good street cafe with decent German food and Dinkelaker beer.

Our conversation went like this:

“You’re a Dinkelaker.”
“No, you’re a Dinkelaker.”
“No, you’re a Dinkelaker.”
etc.

We knew it was time to go home.