Mercedes-Benz Museum Stuttgart: A Journey Through Automotive History

If you are interested in cars, engineering, design or the history of transportation, the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany is an attraction worth putting on your itinerary. Even if you are not a serious car enthusiast, the museum offers a fascinating look at how the automobile developed from its earliest beginnings into the modern vehicles we know today.

During my visit to Stuttgart, I set out to find the Mercedes-Benz Museum, located in the Untertürkheim area of the city. What I discovered was much more than a collection of classic cars. The museum combines automotive history, architecture, technology and the story of Mercedes-Benz into an impressive journey through time.

Visiting the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart

The museum building itself is hard to miss. Its futuristic design immediately gives visitors a sense that this is not going to be an ordinary car museum. Designed by UNStudio, the building uses a distinctive double-helix-inspired layout, with two interconnected routes taking visitors through the exhibition.

The museum opened in 2006 and was designed around the history of the automobile and the Mercedes-Benz brand. Today, the exhibition covers nine levels and includes around 160 vehicles and more than 1,500 exhibits.

Rather than simply placing cars in rows, the museum tells a chronological story. Visitors begin near the top and gradually make their way through the exhibition, following the development of the automobile and the history of Mercedes-Benz.

The experience starts with the invention of the automobile in the late nineteenth century and continues through different generations of passenger cars, racing cars, commercial vehicles and technological developments. Along the way, the exhibits also place the cars within the wider historical events of their time.

This is the only Mercedes-Benz museum in the world that can document in a single continuous timeline for the more than 130 years of the auto industry history from its very beginnings to the present day.

Getting There and Starting the Visit

The Mercedes-Benz Museum is located at Mercedesstraße 100 in Stuttgart, near the Mercedes-Benz plant in Untertürkheim. I set out to track down the museum by rail from Mainz to Stuttgart. On arrival at Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof, take the S1 S-Bahn towards Kirchheim (Teck) and get off at NeckarPark. The journey takes only a few minutes, followed by approximately a 10-minute walk to the museum, passing by the MHPArena, home stadium of VfB Stuttgart. Although the museum is around 5 km from Stuttgart’s main railway station, walking the entire way takes about an hour, so public transport is the more practical option.

When I arrived, the architecture was almost as interesting as the cars inside. The huge atrium and unusual structure give the museum a futuristic atmosphere, setting the stage for the historical journey that follows.

Is the Mercedes-Benz Museum Worth Visiting?

Absolutely. But the real surprise was discovering that the museum is not only about Mercedes-Benz cars. It is a story about the invention of the automobile, technological innovation and the way cars have changed the world.

Let’s take a closer look at what you can see inside the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

The museum itself is an architectural wonder. Designed by UNStudio van Berkel & Bos, it was based on a unique cloverleaf concept using three overlapping circles with the center removed to form a triangular atrium recalling the shape of a Wankel engine. The building was completed and opened on 19 May 2006, providing 16,500 square metres (178,000 sq ft) of exhibition space on a footprint of just 4,800 square metres (52,000 sq ft). The double helix also corresponds to the exhibition concept, which divides the museum into the “myth rooms” and the “collections”, offering two alternative tours that can be merged at any given point of the museum. On nine levels, the museum presents over 1,500 exhibits.

Exhibits at Legend 1

Although there are 160 vehicles on display, it is not possible to sit inside most of the vehicles. Two of the vehicles, however, can be accessed: the Mercedes-Benz Econic NGT 2628 garbage truck (Collection 3 “Gallery of Helpers”) and the Mercedes-Benz O 302 World Cup team bus used by the 1974 German national squad (Collection 4 “Gallery of Names”).

Gottlieb Daimler’s motorized carriage was the world’s first four-wheeled automobile.

In 1886, Carl Benz submitted the patent for his motor car at the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin. This invention is considered to be the birth of the automobile. It has changed and formed individual mobility worldwide to this day.

Mercedes 75PS Doppelphaeton (1908) was the first series-production model to be built by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft with a six-cylinder engine

The Mercedes-Benz 500 K (1934-1936) was the car of the rich and the beautiful and only 34 units were produced.

The building’s interior is inspired by the double helix structure of the DNA spiral that carries the human genome. This in turn illustrates the Mercedes-Benz brand’s philosophy – to continuously create radically new products to advance the cause of human mobility.

During a two-hour tour of the exhibition, visitors can experience a unique journey through the automotive history. Transported by a modernistic and yet retro looking lift to the uppermost level of the museum, the visitor arrives back in the year 1886, where two museum tours gradually spiral their way down through the extensive collection and back to the museum exit.

The first of the tours consists of seven Legend rooms which narrate the chronological history of the brand. The second tour groups the wealth of vehicles on display into five separate Collection rooms, which thematically document the breadth and diversity of the brand portfolio and collection.

Both tours finish at the banked curve entitled Silver Arrows – Races & Records. The exhibition is rounded off by the Fascination of Technology display, which offers a glimpse into day-to-day work at Mercedes-Benz and also presents topics concerning the future of the automobile.

An audio-visual guide is available for visitors. It accompanies you on your tour of the museum and offers additional information to you in eight different languages. For the German and English languages, you have a choice of four profiles: Basics, History, Technology and a Kids profile. The audio-visual museum guide uses infrared and radio technology to convey information on the different display rooms and exhibits and is included in the entrance fee.

The Mercedes F400 Carving concept car

Lewis Hamilton wrote racing history in this car – McLaren-Mercedes MP4-23 (2008)

Only bags and backpacks up to a maximum size of A4 are permitted into the exhibition area. You can leave your larger backpacks and suitcases in the cloakroom and lockers. The cloakroom and lockers are free of charge. There is also a Museum Shop and a restaurant in the building.

After the tour, and if you have not had enough of cars yet, then you can make a short trip to the Porsche museum next!

For current opening hours, ticket information and visitor arrangements, see the official Mercedes-Benz Museum website.

Tip: Make sure you keep your ticket as visitors presenting an entrance ticket to one of the museums will get 25 percent off the regular ticket price or on the concessionary price for the other museum!

See: Best hotels to stay in Stuttgart

Also read: 11 Castles Along the Rhine: Rüdesheim to Boppard

Article and photos by Jack K, © trifargo.

Editor’s note: This article describes my visit to the Mercedes-Benz Museum in 2018. Museum exhibitions, opening hours, ticket prices and visitor arrangements can change. Check the official Mercedes-Benz Museum website for current information before visiting.