A top Brussels museum is gearing up for its biggest event of the year. For the next three months, the city’s Autoworld is hosting an exhibition of Porsche cars. But these are not just any ordinary Porsche cars – but some never exhibited in public before.
The event is timely as the famous German car company this year marks its 75th anniversary and some of the vehicles on display at the museum are sure to attract interest from far and wide. As Leo Van Hoorick, the museum’s head of museology (curator), said, “This truly is a world class collection of Porsche cars. This is our 8th temporary exhibition of the year and our biggest yet.”
The expo, called “Driven By Dreams”, opened on 8 December, features 64 cars, including 22 which have come specially from the company’s own museum in Germany on temporary loan.
Autoworld collected 9 Porsche concept cars never before exhibited in Belgium and shows them next to the production model. From the 984 that would become the 914, untill the Taycan prototype dreaming of an alternative future, passing by the 989 (Panamera project), the 959 Group B study, the 911 Vision Safari… And many other models next to these.
This year, as well as the company’s 75th birthday, is the 60th anniversary of the 911 model and the expo is proud to display a model of the each of the eight generations that were built, including a turbo version.
Van Hoorick told Travel Tomorrow that the 22 cars on loan from the Porsche museum are not normally exhibited and will therefore not have previously been seen in public before.
The expo features prototypes, heritage cars and competition vehicles and one of the highlights, he predicts, is a “Gmund”, dating from 1948 which was the first ever built by the company after the war. It was manufactured in Austria before Porsche relocated to Stuttgart.
Young visitor’s dreams are given free rein in the separate area set up for kids’ workshops where they can build the Porsche of their dreams using Lego bricks.
A life-size Lego-Porsche will be on display in order to inspire the young Ferdinand Porsches. And with the racing simulator the next Porsche Le Mans winner might be discovered.
During the three-month expo “Porsche, Driven By Dreams” Autoworld’s permanent collection remains on display. Of course, the ‘Bagnole’ restaurant will also remain open to the public, as will the museum shop with an extensive Porsche collection, ideal for the holidays.
