This review is long overdue as I actually visited this brilliant museum a year ago while travelling to Wolfsburg. My second major European road trip lined up a great selection of Museums with a stark contrast from the quirky DAF Museum through the refined “PS I love you” exhibition and PS Speicher to the Autostadt complex in Wolfsburg (and the return route proved just as impressive).
In this line-up, the PS Speicher was a bit of a dark horse, and I was not sure if I should even include it on the busy agenda. With the unlimited speed of the Autobahn and a lucky shortcut through the Harz mountains however, I just made it about an hour before closure.
The decision to pay a visit proved to be a wise one, the PS Speicher is a recently refurbished Museum that has enough to offer for a full day. As the name suggests, it was converted from an old granary (hence the name “the Horsepower Storage”) with keen design and style combining an elegant environment with traditional education.
To give an idea about the size, the main exhibition is housed in the seven-story Granary tower, that is surrounded by several buildings hosting special exhibitions. And I had about an hour to see everything…
In this side of Europe, I am constantly reminded that I am in Germany, the first reaction to my arrival was the warning that I still have to pay the full fee (and it was surely worth it, I must say), even if there was an hour left from the opening time (for the sake of completeness, many Museums offer discounts on entry in the last few hours).
Also given the sheer size of the Granary complex, I fully utilised the hour available, but I could only bargain less than 5 extra minutes from the guards (my personal record was to get 30 additional minutes from the guards in Riga). The PS Speicher functioned like a clockwork, with no extra space for such individual wishes.
Nevertheless, everything was at its place, a guided tour was ongoing about until 15 minutes before closing, brochures and the full array of the infrastructure was available until the minute of the closing time.
The Museum follows the traditional Museum layout (as seen at Mercedes, Audi or Louwman) with an elevator bringing visitors to the top floor, starting a descent along with the exhibition. In the case of the PS Speicher, even the main lift showed more design efforts than many museums, providing an overview of the height of the Granary.
The exhibition follows a timeline starting with the first mechanical vehicles with or without an engine. The first area of the top floor showcases artefacts before 1912.
The exhibition includes a replica of the original Patentwagen, the car that started the automotive revolution. The real highlight of the floor, however, is an original 1894 Benz Patent Victoria.
The car is in an original unrestored condition, with the chassis number 99. It looks like a coach without horses, but the Victoria is the first four-wheeled motor vehicle, equipped with an axle steering.
The fifth floor is dedicated to the period after the war, until 1929. The exhibition area is filled with motorcycles, along with a few cars.
As a highlight, there is simulator integrated into a Hanomag car, which is also called “Kommissbrot” (which is not a refined pastry product : ) ), to navigate through traffic on the streets of the 1920s.
The fourth floor showcases cars in two segments, the first one is a pre-war segment, the other part picks up in the ruins where World War II concluded.
The pre-war segment boasts with one of the most extensive collections of pre-war motorcycles.
These include the people carriers to mobilise the Third Reich up to high-end motorcycles from Munich.
The second segment showcases war machines and the devastation arising from the apocalypse of the ’40s.
The floor concludes with a positive note of the reconstruction, the resurrection of mobility with the microcars and two-wheelers.
The next floor comes up with one of the most striking segment. The exhibition outlines the parallel development of the two Germanies.
The best possible starting point is a pair of cars that look identical, although they belong to two different worlds. The vehicle on the left bears the four rings of the Auto Union, it has been the future hope of the DKW brand that was developed for the times when the war was over.
The car on the right carries the badge of the then newly established east German industry conglomerate IFA. The F9 was a compact family car manufactured under the East German flag between 1950 and 1956, until they gave up the sophisticated western designs and opted for something more bland, in the form of the Wartburg. The model was first built at the Zwickau plant that used to belong to Auto Union. A few years later, it was moved to the Eisenach plant, that was also nationalised by the DDR from BMW (a report is coming on that Museum too).
Jumping a few segments and decades forward, visitors get to see to a very telling table on the situation of 1979. By then, an average West-German employee was earning about 400-600 Deutschmarks a week, while his eastern counterpart was earning roughly 170-230 Marks (with a 1:1 exchange rate pegged to the DM).
While the luckier Johann could buy a Golf for about 10.000 DM, his less fortunate brother can only get a Trabant 601 for about 8.000 marks. Working harder for a crappy car like the Trabant is one thing, the long delivery times exacerbated the situation. The table should give hope that an eastern worker may hope to see lesser price tags on most foodstuffs. Nevertheless, those who lived in a communist regime might recall, that the lack of choice and availability drove the more realistic comrades toward the black or grey economy, where prices had nothing to do with regulated levels.
Moving on with the exhibition, the Speicher sports another set of motorcycles underpinning the bold claims of the Museum for the most extensive motorcycle collection.
Going through the next few segments, I tend to agree, PS Speicher has a genuinely memorable fleet.
The next segment illustrates the economic boom and the arrival of the consumer society, with colourful leisure activities, and new infrastructure.
The Guide highlighted the red VW “Samba”, the luxurious variant of the VW T1 series Minivan, that became an iconic car of that period. The name embodies the spirit of the period, rediscovering the love for the quality of life and for the travel and discoveries.
Amazing dioramas illustrate this period, although, in my view, the Amphicar is a bit too much : ). I recall that on the other side of the iron curtain, journals even questioned the credibility of a car with a surfboard (why would a carpenter go to the beach? : ) )…
In the following segments, the hippy period and the arrival of the ‘80s is again illustrated via various styles of Motorcycles.
The exhibition continues with the hippy period, culminating in the arrival of custom choppers. The segment concludes with the dawn of Japanese manufacturers.
The highlight is a small home theatre showing reports and commercials in line with the zeitgeist.
The next segment maintains a stronger technological focus, enumerating the various innovations in safety.
The exit of the segment showcases the modern-day bikes, leading to the final part illustrating the future.
Some of these installations might overshoot the target but still give a valuable insight into what the industry might consider a forward-looking technology.
And the design is truly impressive… With projections on vehicles that became a popular show element in the 2017 IAA’s stages (I also liked the one in the Seat Pavilion of Autostadt).
The last part I could still witness before the closure was dedicated to Microcars.
The special exhibition Klein aber mein (“Small but it’s mine”) started in In June 2018. It was based on one of the most extensive European collection of small and micro cars, originating from a private museum from the southern Lower Saxony Störy that the PS Speicher’s Foundation acquired.
In total, the collection of the Kulturstiftung Kornhaus encompasses about 250 small and micro cars, from the world record holder Peel 50 to the “giants” like the Smart ForTwo or the Renault 5.
Part of it can be visited in the special exhibition Klein but mein. If dozens of microcars would not suffice, on special occasions, the PS Depot’s warehouse stock can also be visited upon request.
PS Speicher is thus a household name for microcars, so much that it now actively contributes to other exhibitions, such as the recent Microcar show of the Louwman Museum, earlier this year.
In a bit more than an hour, I ran through this vast exhibition, trying to coordinate my presence with a guided tour that took place in German, while also keeping some distance from them to be able to take photos. Then I managed to bargain some 5 extra minutes to sneak in for the Microcars, and totally missing out on the electric car exhibition and the Porsche Simulator.
The Speicher is an excellent museum, but do not expect the vast array of supercars or hypercars. This is not the Louwman or the Mercedes museum (yet it is on par with them in presentation and perfectionist design), it does not keep a wealthy industrial heritage like Turin, but as a museum, it is an excellent one. It is educational, historically accurate, at the same time entertaining and modern with a flawless design.
The PS Speicher proved to be a genuinely worthy ending for an intensive day, leaving with lasting memories for my arrival to Wolfsburg.
