Stuttgart
Our motoring pilgrimage brought us next to Stuttgart, Southwestern Germany’s largest city.   It’s not a metropolis as we’re used to in Asia, though; it’s ringed with vineyards and thick woodlands—the Black Forest is adjacent to the city.  What may well be the greenest city in Europe is also the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.  The town's main commercial area, as with most German cities, surrounds the Hauptbanhof or main train station.  Vast palace gardens border the Hauptbanhof, and many locals were enjoying the warm sun, lying down and picnicking on the grass.

If the revolving Mercedes logo on top of the Hauptbanhof isn't enough of a clue as to what company dominates this city, then a quick observation of the traffic should suffice.  The three-pointed star adorns all of the city buses and taxis, and many of the trucks and private cars.

A short ride on the train took me to the sprawling factories of DaimlerChrysler.  I left a few copies of Rev for our media contact; the receptionist’s curiosity was piqued by the issue featuring the Mercedes F400 concept on the cover.  From the reception area, we boarded a bus for the Mercedes Museum within the plant complex.  A nondescript entrance led to a treasure trove of historic Mercedes: this facility is the Louvre of car museums.  What masterpieces, from the first steam-powered Mercedes 3-wheeler to Juan Manuel Fangio's Formula One racer to the gullwing 300SL, all in pristine condition.  Mika's MP4-15 was also prominently displayed at the lobby.  (We'll take you on an extended tour of this Museum in an upcoming feature.)

The next day, we headed to Mercedes’ Sindelfingen plant.  If the Mercedes Museum was the Louvre of the automotive world, this was the Universal Studios Tour.  We rode a multi-compartment tram, complete with tour guide, and it motored right into the various buildings of the plant.  We saw massive stamping machines fashioning body panels from rolls of steel.  Robots performed much of the assembly work, from swinging large canopies of glass to form the C Coupes' Panoramic roof, to inserting completed engines under the engine bays.  The plant tour was scheduled for ninety minutes, and with typical German efficiency, we arrived back at the reception center just as the onboard clock ticked off the final minute.

We also spent an hour or two at the Porsche museum right beside its factory and a large Porsche dealership.  There were just about thirty cars on display, but many of them were quite significant, including the McLaren-TAG-Porsche that won the 1984-86 world championships for Niki Lauda and Alain Prost, with a total of 25 victories.

Our hotel was right across a Mercedes dealership, and we stopped by every day to gaze at the stunning SL55 AMG that was casually propped up on a stand.  Alas, we left the town without doing any driving.  Perhaps next time we won't be just looking.

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