I’ve referenced before how one upside of my job is that I get to travel, sometimes to the armpit of Texas and sometimes to wonderful places like Germany. I’ll have a long-term rental car roundup in the near future but today I want to talk about #Stuttgart. Known for many things, most importantly the Wilhelma Zoo & Botanical Gardens, is it also home to both the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz Museums.

My drive from was from the west near #Homburg and #Kaiserslautern heading eastbound toward Heidelberg then southeast to Stuttgart. Naturally I spent the majority of the time on the #Autobahn (I was going to say Das Autobahn but that would’ve been horribly cliché, also I do know the “sex” of the word Autobahn to discern if it would be Die, Der or Das). If you’ve ever driven on the Autobahn then you know as Americans we drive like shit. The rules are simple, drive right pass left. If you don’t follow these you WILL have an Audi/BMW/Mercedes/VW station wagon flashing its highs at you like the red light district in Amsterdam.

It has been roughly five years since I’ve Autobahned and nine years since I’ve been to Stuttgart. Although the trip was uneventful, this did lead to some interesting issues upon my arrival. You see, the last time I was in the city that #Porsche (and #Mercedes) built I had my beautiful wife and co-pilot to navigate. This time I just followed the signs to the first parking garage with open spaces. FYSA… in Europe there are signs pointing to all garages with a digital read out telling you the number of open spots. It is genius. What I forgot is the museum has its own garage which isn’t specifically labeled unless you drive straight at it.

I did not drive straight at it thus resulting in my rental, a 6-speed Ford C-Max, sitting in the entrance lane of a parking garage sans a ticket machine. I studied the pictographs on the box hoping the right button would raise the gate and whisk me away to Porsche heaven. Nah, I got a few beeps and an authoritarian #German voice asking, what I assume, what the hell was I doing. Now, I lived in #Germany for four years and know one thing, there are times when you try and sound German and there are times when you try to sound as Yankee and lost as possible. Well, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. After explaining my situation, he came back in heavily accented English, “No, this is Porsche employee parking. I will raise the gate and you will drive straight forward then take left and exit. Do you understand?”

I confirmed twicely that I did and off I went, down one level and out of the garage. You would think that this would end my parking fiasco. Well, you thought wrong dude. I was now in the heart of the Porsche industrial complex with no road signs following the GPS that had really gotten me into this mess to begin with. I’ll get more into that with the rental car round up. I began to drive around blindly trying to free myself from the industrial complex maze made up of more than 15 city blocks. In reality I should’ve just parked… blended in… and found myself wandering into some top-secret design shop where the next 914/924/928 is being designed. Although, from the tour, I believe most design is still done in Austria.

I eventually made it back to the main road and drove directly at the museum entering the traffic egg. No, it is not a circle, it is shaped like an egg. I saw the familiar sign for the garage and descended below the museum into a subterranean fortress filled with some very nice cars. Mostly Porsches. I hopped out of the C-Max, geared up with my phone, camera and Euro and hit the elevator. Fun fact… if you are wondering most elevators in Germany are made by Schindler (in American it is Otis, watch that movie with Meg Ryan and Wolverine).

I got my ticket and audio docent then stopped at the café for a Ham Sammy and MezzoMix before boarding the escalator to heaven. Really it is an escalator that seems to climb five stories at a very slow pace. This gives you time to listen to the audio introduction on the small android device like docent that is included with admission. The docent, pictured below, has a virtual keypad allowing you to input a three-digit number that corresponds to an exhibit pulling up audio, video and pictures depending on which car, engine, or other various variety of auto part you are standing in front of. It is quite nice and the earpiece is more than comfortable.

The museum is quite bright, clad all in white with most vehicles sitting on a contrasting black strip against the wall. As with most German buildings it is very meticulous, sterile and orderly. In other words, it’s how most things should be if you are an OCD like myself. I spent the next three hours slowly following the natural flow, progressing through time periods before reaching the top. The entire walk is on a very small incline and before you realize it you’ve gone up roughly three to five more stories… or at least it seems when you look down.

Now I like oddballs and this year’s exhibit which kicked off earlier in the month-50 Years of the 914-is right up my alley. The 914 is the Porsche-VW coauthorship that could be best described as the ugly duckling of Porsche history. I love it. The 914 Exhibit was at the peak of the building and I spent a good 45 minutes here taking pictures and reading the various placards over and over. Additionally, they are also celebrating the 917 which is much more influential in the automakers past.

Now that I’d made it to the top there was only one place to go, down. I hopped on the even longer down escalator to check out the gift shop. It was crowded but I was able to scope out a book and some stuff for the kiddos before taking another lap of swirly building. As I boarded the ginormous elevator one more time to go back up, I took a look at my docent. The docent accepts three-digit numbers. All Porsche models are three-digit numbers. Like most people in the world my mind has been warped by “Easter eggs” in video games, movies and electronic gadgets (ask a Tesla driver about their center screen and pray they don’t do cross-fit too). I started keying in model numbers.

914. “Nothing exists for this entry”
915. “Nothing exists for this entry”
916. “Nothing exists for this entry”
917. “Nothing exists for this entry”

I dared not type in 911 but now my mind was wandering, what else is three characters. German’s have a reputation for not having a sense of humor, in fact there is an entire South Park episode all about just that, but I know from my time living here that isn’t true. What you have to understand, like everything German, their sense of humor is more purposeful, direct, almost blunt. And like their décor it is sparse, so much so that when it does show up you can’t help but laugh.

666. The screen immediately turns white with a red boarder and centered in the middle is “ALARM!”

As I ascend the elevator, I struggled to shut the damn thing up. It was squealing like Ned Beatty in Deliverance and I was starting to get worried. The high pitch scream was ear shattering and no doubt drawing attention. As I reached the top of the elevator, I searched for an information booth and tried to walk as calmly as possible to the two men standing behind it. Well, they head me coming and one walked over to meet me… but he wasn’t in a hurry. I threw the device toward him, removing my hand from the speaker, unmuffling the screech. He took it and held his finger on the top of the device rebooting it. He looked at me said. “Yes, we don’t type the 666, that is the idiot alarm.”

Yes, he called me an idiot. I just smiled in laughed, because damnit, it was funny. My docent finished booting up… and it was now in French. Touché Sir, touché. I love Germany. I wandered some more, hit the gift shop to pick what I had scoped earlier and left.

Maybe next time I should say that I’m an automotive journalist… probably not because then I’d have to admit I’m nothing more than a blogger, and I make fun of bloggers.

Maybe that’s just the idiot alarm?