Day at the museum Part 2: the semi-secret Porsche vault

Dean Evans
  • Sign in required

    Please sign in to your account to add a vehicle to favourite

  • Share this article

While the public Porsche Museum in Stuttgart certainly has reason to impress, it’s just part of Porsche’s collection: in fact, less than one-seventh. With more than 700 road cars, including 200 race and rally cars, still owned by Porsche, and just spaces for less than 100 at the official museum, there’s a nearby storage warehouse that’s kind of secret/not secret.

And with a few hundred cars having an overseas experience at a show or exhibition or event at any one point, there’s still the need to store the remaining cars so they are accessible or being worked on.

And this is where Porsche’s blandly titled ‘car collection’ comes into play. Located, er, we can’t say, but not far from the Stuttgart Porsche factory, it’s considered a hub of Porsche’s cars.

Started in the late 1950s, the car collection, also dubbed The Vault, was designed as a place to keep the racecars after their last race and as a hub for the collection, to allow them to come, go and park between exhibitions, shows or events around the world.

Since then, the collection has grown steadily over the years, prompting a decision to make these fascinating cars available to the public in 1976.

Then, as now, they cover the entire spectrum of the process of creating a Porsche sports car, from showcars to development cars to finished production cars, while keeping them driving.

And now, it’s also home to some of the most important Porsche milestones of the past and present.

We’re greeted with a line of famous racing icons, some of which had just returned from Goodwood the previous weekend, such as the Rothmans Porsche 961 racer, Le Mans 956s and 962s.

Every step, every corner and every glance is an icon of some kind. We pass the first Porsche Carrera GT prototype, parked in a wooden box.

Moments later is the very first 911 Turbo made in 1973 as a birthday present for Louise Porsche, and opposite the prototype for the Porsche 918 Spyder. Proving not all prototypes are successes, there’s a horrifying Cayenne Cabriolet prototype design study, which is done in two halves to assess each concept’s potential for production in the one car. Thankfully nether side made it.

Just a few more steps reveals the iconic supercar shape and one of the key reasons for being on this trip with Porsche, the classic 959.

But when it rains, it pours. I spy a white road car, my all-time Lotto car, to discover it’s also the very same car used in the classic Bridgestone RE71 tyre ad of the ’80s. Our hosts grant me wish of rolling it out a little so I can at least sit in it, as my bucket list drive might never happen. Parked alongside are the two 1986 Paris-Dakar Rothmans 959s that finished 1-2. The third Dakar 959, entered as a support vehicle that finished 6th, is back at the Museum.

As if that wasn’t enough 959, turning left are another two road cars, red and grey, their engine bays opened, batteries on trickle charge. That’s eight 959s visible within a few kilometres; nine if we include the 1984 Paris-Dakar-winning 953, prototype for the 959’s 4x4 running gear.

Moving on, there’s a whole section devoted to RS models, with a silver GT1 taking centre-stage today, while a red 1959 Porsche Schlepper tractor, with a 1.6-litre two-cylinder diesel, sits right at the back.

Two Carrera GT and two Porsche 918 Spyder press vehicles sit on the floor alongside Porsche’s modern Le Mans cars, with names like Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber identifying the drivers. There are rear-engined 928s, prototypes for electric Boxster and Cayman models, plus the original Taycan prototype, the Mission E.

One of the most visually striking cars is the 928 tyre tester, recently retired after decades of work testing tyre noise, its bodywork full of noise suppressing mufflers, to isolate everything but tyre din.

The biggest problem with the Porsche Vault is that there is simply not enough time to see everything. With around one-third of the collection’s car covers pulled back, our one-hour tour felt like 10 minutes.

One-off Roadsters, cars seen in TV commercials, print ads, motor shows and modern, classic and vintage road, race and rally icons, check out the full walkthrough video above for a rushed tour of the Porsche Vault – it’s the closest most people will get to access.

Gallery