Mercedes-Benz Museum

The Marque'S Own Museum In A Double Helix Building Of 2006: About 160 Vehicles Over Nine Floors, From Benz'S 1886 Patent Motor Car Onward, Told As One Continuous Spiral Of Motoring History · Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg

The Mercedes-Benz Museum is a corporate museum, and the row may as well say so first: it is the marque's own account of itself, beside its own works at Untertuerkheim, with the awkward parts handled briefly. It is also one of the best museums of its kind anywhere. The 2006 building by UNStudio is a double helix: a lift takes you to the top and you spiral down through roughly 130 years on two interwoven routes, the chronological Legend rooms and the thematic Collection galleries, crossing between them wherever you like, with about 160 vehicles over nine levels. It opens with the 1886 Benz Patent Motor Car, the oldest automobile there is, and ends at the bottom with Silver Arrows and modern Formula One cars. In between: the Blitzen-Benz, the 300 SL Gullwing, buses, fire engines, a papal Mercedes and the cars of heads of state. Allow three hours, go on any day but Monday, and take the S-Bahn rather than drive.

Mercedesstrasse 100, Stuttgart-Untertuerkheim, beside the works and the stadium, Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

Open daily except Monday, all year, with closures on a few public holidays, usually including Christmas Day - confirm, and confirm separately whether a Monday that falls on a public holiday is an exception. Expect roughly 9 am to 6 pm, with last admission about an hour before closing and the upper levels beginning to clear before that. A reduced late-afternoon ticket, often from about an hour and a half before closing, is common at this museum - it is good value only if you accept you will not see everything. Factory tours of the adjacent plant are a separate booking with their own limited times, run on working days only, and are usually full weeks or months ahead.

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