Volkswagen car museum

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VW Beetle from the 1950s in the exhibition of the car museum

The Volkswagen car museum ( spelling AutoMuseum Volkswagen ) is an independent car museum in Wolfsburg ( Lower Saxony ) supported by Volkswagen AG . In the permanent exhibition it shows 140 different vehicles exclusively from the Volkswagen brand from all years on an area of ​​5000 m². There are also around 20 exhibits during each of the special exhibitions.

history

As early as 1954, the Volkswagenwerk GmbH under its general director Heinrich Nordhoff began to store the company's exhibits and to buy back missing vehicles from their owners. In 1967, a vehicle collection was opened on the premises of the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg , but it was not yet open to the public. On April 25, 1985, the museum opened at its current location. In the first few years, the museum showed vehicles from the then Volkswagen Group, which in addition to products from the Volkswagen brand also included exhibits from Audi , DKW , Horch , NSU and Wanderer . On January 1, 1992, the museum and its exhibits were transferred to the AutoMuseum Volkswagen Foundation, which was newly established for this purpose , in order to make it entrepreneurially independent from Volkswagen AG. In 2001 the museum was renovated and restructured, and since then has only shown exhibits from the Volkswagen brand. Some exhibits were transferred to the ZeitHaus of the Autostadt , which opened in June 2000 . In 2007 there were again redesign and renovation work. On November 8, 2017, the newly established engine cabinet , an exhibition of engines and transmissions, was opened.

Museum building and exhibition

The museum is located in the building of the former textile factory Herrenkleiderwerke Odermark, which was built in 1966 in the industrial area East in Heßlingen , near the Wolfsburg city center. The "AutoMuseum Volkswagen Foundation" has been the sponsor since 1992.

The vehicle exhibition shows the development of the first Volkswagen in the form of the VW Beetle from the 1930s to the cessation of production in Mexico in 2003 . Racing vehicles, prototypes , design studies and unique items from the car brand will also be on display . Vehicles that were used for special purposes, such as the Deutsche Bundespost , the police or the fire brigade , are also shown. The engine cabinet , a collection of around 50 engines and gearboxes, is only accessible after prior registration as part of a guided tour.

The museum has the following five themed islands:

  • Buddy beetle
  • Generation golf
  • Volkswagen family
  • Volkswagen vans, from utility to luxury
  • Future tense Volkswagen

Exhibits

Outstanding among the "air-cooled" are:

  • a KdF Beetle from 1943
  • an all-wheel drive commander's car from 1946
  • a four-door Messerschmitt Beetle from Frankfurt from 1953
  • a duplicate of the one millionth Volkswagen from 1955
  • a Beetle with an extremely harmonious Ghia-Aigle body from 1956
  • a beetle from the 1969 film " Herbie "
  • a VW Karmann-Ghia Type 14 Coupé from 1972
  • a Brazilian VW SP2 sports car from 1973
  • the last Beetle to be built in Germany - a 1978 1200 model produced in Emden
  • the prototype (1949) and the millionth Volkswagen Transporter T1 (1962)
  • a T2b transporter with all-wheel drive (1978)

Among the "water-cooled" are to be emphasized:

  • one of the oldest still existing Golf I for the long-distance test Alaska-Tierra del Fuego (1974)
  • the Polo II Sprint with a supercharged boxer in the rear (1983)
  • several Rabbits for the USA and from US production (from 1976)
  • a Golf I Pirelli from 1983
  • the first built Golf II (1983)
  • the VW Scirocco II TR with Targa roof (1982)
  • a 1983 Corrado roadster
  • a VW New Beetle RSi convertible (2003)
  • a VW Passat I GTI (1977)

Various prototypes and spectacular concept vehicles are in the exhibition:

  • a kind of four-seater Karmann Ghia called EA 47-12 (1955)
  • a predecessor of the later VW Type 3 called EA 97-1 (1960)
  • the forerunner of the VW Type 4 named EA 142 (1966), shaped by Pininfarina
  • the forerunner of the Passat named EA 272 (1972)
  • the double door van IRVW Futura (1989)
  • the airy recreational vehicle Vario (1990)
  • the 1-liter car from 2002

Particularly noteworthy among the racing and record-breaking vehicles are:

  • Formula Vau (1966)
  • Aerodynamic flounder ARVW I (1980)
  • Golf I Rheila (1981)
  • VW Iltis Paris-Dakar (1980)
  • VW Race Touareg (2011)

Events

Since 2015, the museum's tradition of holding “vintage jazz concerts” in a special atmosphere has been revived. The car museum is also the venue for club meetings and internal Volkswagen workshops as well as large meetings. There are also special exhibitions at least four times a year. In 2015 these were “Volkswagen in the GDR”, “60 Years of VW Karmann-Ghia ”, “30 Years of the AutoMuseum” and “40 Years of Polo”.

See also

literature

  • Treasury. The most important exhibits in the collection of the Volkswagen AutoMuseum. Delius Klasing Verlag, 2015.
  • Christoph Vieweg. VW rarities. Geramond Verlag, 2014.
  • Bernd Wiersch: The AutoMuseum Wolfsburg. In: Museums and excursion destinations in the Gifhorn-Wolfsburg area , Gifhorn 1989.
  • Volkswagen AG, Public Relations (Ed.): AutoMuseum Wolfsburg , Wolfsburg 1985.
  • Volkswagen AutoMuseum Foundation (publisher): 25 years of the Volkswagen AutoMuseum. Wolfsburg 2010.

Web links

Commons : Volkswagen Automuseum  - Collection of Pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Opened in the company of Volkswagen aggregate developers: Das Motoren-Kabinett. In: automuseum-volkswagen.de, accessed on November 10, 2017.
  2. ^ Fritz Hesse: Wolfsburg, yesterday and today. 2nd edition, Wolfsburg 1968, p. 56
  3. ↑ Eberhard Rohde: Wolfsburg was a stronghold for textiles. In: Wolfsburger Nachrichten. Edition of June 4, 2016, p. 23

Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 39 ″  N , 10 ° 48 ′ 35 ″  E