MotorWorld Böblingen – Motorsport Wanderlust

If you are visiting Stuttgart in Germany a trip to MotorWorld is an absolute must! I decided to visit Stuttgart for the first time and pencilled this place in on my itinerary, time permitting, while on my way to visit the Mercedes-Benz factory tour in nearby Sindelfingen… boy am I glad I did. This place is amazing!

So what is MotorWorld?

To me, it’s an enthusiast’s candy shop. As I understand it the fellow that put this complex together is a successful automotive dealer (if you’re in the market there are a number of exotic brands for sale on the property both brand new and classic) that opened up his private collection to the world. Admission is FREE! There’s a ton to see. One could easily spend an hour browsing around if not more. There’s an automotive theme hotel on site, appropriately called the V8 Hotel. Where each room is done up as a particular car model, complete with cut outs of various car bits to accent it rather tastefully. There’s a restaurant/bar on site. It’s just walking distance from the adjacent train station that takes you into town. And it is where the shuttle bus goes to the Mercedes-Benz factory across the river if you’re poor like me and arriving by public transport. There’s also plenty of parking if you’re driving, in fact the former airport that this site sits on hosts a bunch of car shows throughout the year as per their web site. Wouldn’t it be something if one’s schedule lined up with one of those?

Going in I was expecting to kill half an hour before taking the above mentioned shuttle bus to Sindelfingen for my 1PM appointment (because of course you make an appointment for the MB factory tour) but I ended up spending more than an hour browsing around draging my jaw on the floor. I even came back after the tour for some more.

Again the location is super convenient. Lots of exotics driving around besides those being featured, sold or stored for customers in the facility. You may and most likely will spy a number of camouflaged Mercedes prototypes driving around on the streets nearby too.

Some of my favorites… the obvious choice was a two-tone Mitsouka Roadster conversion based on an NC Miata… first time for me seeing one of those in person:

Lots of classic Mercedes-Benz cars, Porsche’s… both race cars and of course the original tractor. Tons of Fiat’s and Alfa Romeo’s. So much good variety one loves to see at a museum.

There’s even a Spark die cast model shop on site selling incredible (and rather pricey) examples of accurate livery race cars from various series like the GT3 cup, Le Mans 24 hours and even Daytona 24 hours.