Porsche Museum counts three million visitors

The record was broken Thursday morning. Justine und David Boscaglia from Melbourne, Australia were the three-millionth person to visit the exhibits of the Stuttgart-based sports car manufacturer. Achim Stejskal, Head of Porsche Museum, surprised the milestone visitor with a gift certificate that could be redeemed for a high-horsepower drive: in conjunction with the Porsche Drive mobility concept, Porsche AG is letting them choose any vehicle from the current model range for a full weekend of driving.

“It is such a surprise”, says David Boscaglia. „We are huge Porsche fans. So a visit at Zuffenhausen was a Must.“

The Porsche Museum not only draws fans from Germany but from around the world. “50 per cent of visitors come from foreign countries,” emphasises Achim Stejskal. The visitor statistics of recent years show a positive trend.

From the beginning a crowd puller

Half a million sports car fans already visited the exhibits at Porscheplatz during its opening year of 2009. In June 2011, the one million milestone was reached, and in December 2013 two million. The visitor total for each year even surpassed the total for the prior year.

In 2015, the Porsche Museum welcomed 445,730 visitors, which was eight per cent more than in 2014. In 2016, the Porsche Museum visibly enhanced its attractiveness. On April 27, the new special exhibit “The Transaxle Era. From the 924 to the 928.” opens. It will feature Porsche sports cars with front-mounted engines from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Very much a living museum, the Porsche Museum is continually working to further develop its viewing collection. At the end of a tour of the exhibits, there is now an interactive “Porsche Touchwall” that invites visitors to research the company’s history in a playful way.

More interactivity for visitors in the permanent exhibits

When the visitor approaches the 12-metre long touchwall, the intelligent person tracking system opens the wall’s contents level which enables virtual time travel through nine decades of automotive history. Visitors can browse through the wall’s collection of over 3,000 photos, drawings, posters and advertisements of the period of 1931 to the present – including an extensive selection of images and technical data about nearly all street vehicles and race cars that sport the Porsche logo.

New contents are imported and added daily – fully automatically – via the wall’s interface to the database of the historical archives. Another special feature is navigation by touch frames, which allow several different visitors to control the media simultaneously with multi-touch gestures. Even the smallest of details can be viewed using the zoom function.

What seems so playfully easy to visitors is actually an exceptional piece of high-tech wizardry. The 20 full-HD 55” displays with natively prerecorded content are driven by five graphic PCs with a 3D real-time application that also enables functions such as moving images over the entire length of the touchwall.

Experimening with original sounds of Porsche

Another new highlight of the permanent exhibit is the interactive sound installation “Porsche in the Mix” which is a unique type of exhibit worldwide. Here, the visitor first chooses a favourite from seven vehicle models. The exhibit plays back the characteristic sounds of vehicles ranging from the 356 to the 911 and up to the 918. The visitor can then activate and deactivate eight additional sounds via a touchscreen. Sounds like indicators lights, doors closing and engine sounds are integrated into the “base track”.

This progressively leads to a complete composition. The sound sources are based on original Porsche vehicle sounds that are visualised by video and animations on the wall surface. The LED sound level indicators hover in the space and vary in height and movement according to the vehicle sound and its volume. Finally, visitors can compose their own musical piece and send it home by email. “Porsche in the Mix” gives visitors a dynamic, audio-visual experience that lets them experience the Porsche brand emotionally in a unique way.

The Porsche Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday and on all legal holidays from 9 am to 6 pm. For more information go to: www.porsche.com/museum.