In an earlier post, I already outlined my latest quest to discover the ultimate European road trip. The ultimate objective of these adventures was to quench my thirst for the automotive adventures and to find new and exciting aspects of mobility.
At the end of the first trip, I already slipped that my addiction was definitely not cured and in fact by that time, already concluded another automotive pilgrimage. This second road trip was perhaps even longer, partly due to the fact that it was more of a round trip than a one-way route, and maybe even more diverse, in terms of polyvalence of impulses. The first two stops could not be more contradictory, one being a high-class German Art Museum with the pride of the noblest private and factory collections, the other being a Truck Museum, where old-school grease-monkey technicians were working on the cherished restoration project cars, buses and trucks, and the most sophisticated vehicle was a Dakar desert racing truck.
At the Kunstpalast I encountered the most improbable combination of Art and technology. The closest thing that comes to my mind is the recent Grand Basel Exhibition. The Museum and Gallery in Düsseldorf is a purpose-built cultural event hall, with a parking leading straight to the cloakroom, where you can also ask for portable stools, in case you wish to spend longer time before the artefacts, to let impressions sink in.
Visitors looking for a bit of diversity between the segments of the PS I love you exhibition may want to visit the picture galleries of the Palace, where I had ample possibilities to observe the connoisseurs are carrying the seats with them to spend time before the paintings, time that we never take nowadays.
The PS I love you exhibition is a small but very impressive special exhibition, gathering about 30 high-class sports cars from the 1950s to the 1970s, with a wide variety of design, origin and purpose. In case you were wondering about the name, PS means HP as Horsepower, hence the name has a double edge. Nevertheless, when it came to the assembling of the artifacts, they were certainly not kidding. The cars featured in the exhibition set standards in automobile design and technology and today rank among the very icons of the history of automotive design and technology.
The exhibition concentrates on three crucial decades of sports car development and covers areas such as racing, prototypes and luxury automobiles. The organisers aimed to show the pinnacles of car design in terms of formal aesthetics from all around the world. Well… mainly from Italy of course, but some also from Britain, US, Germany and from Japan. The focus is on design, and of course, at each car, detailed background information is provided (in many cases also via an interactive screen) noting the designer of the car and the history of the model.
The exhibition is located in two major segments (consisting in multiple halls ) in two floors of the Museum. The first segment of introduces cars from the late 1940s to the mid- 1960s. The exhibition starts with a Cisitalia, whose simple and elegant design inspired many other sports cars, and the harmonious design was also validated by notable racing success in many victories. It is now a fundamental element of every short list of revolutionary car designs, I saw one in Wolfsburg’s automotive design hall of fame exhibition (more on that in a few weeks), but the Cisitalia 202 is also a permanent member of the American Museum of Modern Art’s car fleet in New York.
The Cisitalia is followed by two iconic Porsches, the 356 is the birthday boy of the Porsche car company’s 70th birthday, followed by a 911 of the first generation.
By the exit, two gorgeous Italian cabriolets close the Italian corner.
Next to them, there are a two iconic Gullwing Mercedes, a car that is a masterpiece of its era, bringing back the fame of the German brand in the difficult times. One of the 300 SL Gullwings is courtesy of the Mercedes Factory Museum (one of my favourite museums), but the Gullwing package from Stuttgart will not end here.
I will not waste much time on these well-known automotive icons, instead I let the pictures speak for the Porsches and Mercedes.
I believe that every car Aston Martin ever built is a treat for fans of classic cars, but if I have to name one that stands out in age, rarity and looks, the DB4 Zagato would pop in first. Given the 70th anniversary of Ferrari that was widely celebrated last year, I found genuinely fitting the 166MM, a Le Mans-winning Mille Miglia beast, loosely related to the first street-legal Ferrari, the 166 (whose initial purpose was mainly to raise funds for the Scuderia).
The other side gives a much striking impression of Italian craziness, starting with a bold red 1957 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale Prototype. These cars were built for racing homologation purposes, followed by a small series production version with more compromises. There are many words, that come to my mind when describing this bold and crazy strangeling, but beauty is not one of them,
Next to the crazy concept, the beautiful and elegant 1960 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder is almost like an apology letter for the Giulietta, the perfect opposite in every aspect.
The remaining cars in the room are an important specimen of the legendary E Type (the car presented in Geneva at the car show), and a pre-production BMW 507.
For the next segment, visitors have to move up one floor, and the exhibition also elevates by a decade, for which the two golden Miuras provide a somewhat smooth transition.
In the 1960s the visual language of sports car design changed radically, as the exhibition explains, the streamlined styling, which had been dominant until then, gave way to the so-called wedge shape, and what could illustrate wedge shape than the Lamborghini Countach.
The distinctive attributes of the new style included a long, low front section with no grille on the fascia. Integrated ‘pop-up’ headlights created an ‘eyeless’ appearance and shifted the visual focus to the rear section.
The De Tomaso Mangusta, the Lamborghini Countach (a rather mature, 5000 QV verso and the BMW Turbo concept car were presented as the trailblazers, all sharing the same angular, low- slung aesthetic.
The emphasis was now on a dramatic, aggressive and masculine visual language. The concepts developed between 1950 and 1970 set benchmarks for design, which have shaped the look of sports cars to this day. I was truly astonished to see the Turbo X concept in the exhibition straight from Munich. Given the anniversary year of the M1, whose primary building block was Paul Bracq’s avanguard concept car, I am surprised that the BMW Welt could spare the car for the duration of the exhibition.
There are great cars from every corner of the world, Japan is represented by a Toyota GT2000. This model is one of the legends of the company, if you ever venture to see the Collection run by Toyota Germany’s headquarters, the GT2000 will be the most prominent car (well, most likely it will be on leave touring the continent).
Of course, there will be many Italian cars in this segment as well, from the purpose-built Lancia Stratos through Lamborghinis and Ferraris to exotics like Bizzarrini.
There are plenty of reasons for fans of the automotive to visit the Rheinland area this year, and this exhibition adds a substantial contribution. The PS I love you exhibition will be open until February 2019, so there is plenty of time to catch it. I planned to combine it at the visit to the Essen Motor show, but I did definitely not regret that I advanced the occasion.
