To celebrate the 43rd International Museum Day on May 17, Porsche has announced free entry to the Porsche Museum and virtual tours of the wonderful facility on the porsche.museum Instagram channel.
“Digital diversity is more important than ever at this time, where travel is a greater challenge than ever before”, says Achim Stejskal, Head of Heritage and Porsche Museum. “We have consistently driven forward the expansion of digital offerings, not just since the corona crisis, but for years. We are committed to the ‘Mission Future Heritage’ and like to use modern channels to demonstrate the heritage and future of the brand: not just at our site in Zuffenhausen, but also beyond the museum.”
How to access the Porsche Museum Tour on Instagram
On International Museum Day, two guides will lead virtual visitors through the Porsche Museum’s exhibition, which currently includes over eighty cars in 5,600 square metres of exhibition space. Offering tours in both German and English, the guides will look at special exhibits and offer an insight into the company history.
The digital live tours include prototypes, small exhibits, racing cars and series production cars. Tour timings are set at Central European Summer time, which is one hour ahead of the UK, six hours ahead of the US east coast and nine hours ahead of the west coast. Visitors can watch the first tour in German on Instagram which starts in German at 18:30 hrs CEST, or the second one which starts in English at 00:00 hrs CEST (11pm UK, 6pm NY, 3pm LA).
Porsche says that the times (which seem a little bit random at first glance) have purposefully been set outside the regular opening times – true to the motto: “The museum for everyone” (everyone who does not go to bed at 10pm). More likely they are set to work with the furthest-flown countries where a high percentage of residents have not been to Stuttgart, which is entirely sensible.
I’ve done the museum a couple of times: once as a factory guest, guided by the chief archivist, Dieter Landenberger, and once as just a quick pit stop on the way back from a visit to Alois Ruf with Jonny Hart. Scooting around the museum unaccompanied is not as interesting. The guided tour brings much more information and context to the visit, so it is a no-brainer to set an alarm for 11pm on Sunday night.
The tours will also be recorded and be available on Porsche News TV from Sunday in Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Croatian, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish. “There is a native speaker for each of these languages in the Porsche Museum. We would like to use the videos that have live character to thank our fans around the world and to bring a bit of the Porsche Museum into their homes,” explains Achim.
If you have dreamed of visiting the museum but not made it yet, or if you have already been there but not been back for a few years, the tours will be of interest. I realise the obvious question is “will these be available to view after the live tours” and the answer is I don’t know. Live events are commonly available to watch in the channel’s Instagram story for 24 hours but we will see.
The special promotional day is organised annually by the International Council of Museums ICOM to draw attention to the wide range of work museums do and to the thematic diversity of museums around the world. Museums throughout Germany will provide special initiatives, exhibits or a glimpse behind the scenes this Sunday. Dr Dietmar Woidke, President of the German Bundesrat, is the patron of Museum Day.
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Porsche has announced that it will restart production in both Leipzig and Zuffenhausen from next Monday, May 4th. The manufacturer initially closed production due to coronavirus on March 21st for two weeks and said it would continue to assess the situation. The factories remained closed for six weeks due to issues with global supply chains, but that problem now appears to be sorted.
“We want to make the most of opportunities”: CEO
“It will take a great deal of effort to get the economic and social system moving again and we must all contribute to this,” said Oliver Blume, Porsche AG’s chairman. “It is important to have a positive fundamental attitude. Every crisis also offers opportunities and we want to make the most of them.” I think he is completely correct.
Porsche says it is restarting production on a site- and task-specific basis and that all the required measures have been taken to guarantee the maximum possible safety for employees. Adapted processes in production, logistics and procurement in line with social distancing measures have been agreed with the Works Council and the Health Management department. The requirements of the respective authorities will also be observed.
“The restart is an important signal – for our employees as well as for our customers. We have monitored and analysed the situation very carefully right from the start and flexibly adapted processes. Now is the right time to look forward with optimism and to resume work – subject to special precautions,” says Albrecht Reimold, Member of the Executive Board for Production and Logistics at Porsche AG.
The situation has also been improving in the UK. The dealer group Vertu announced today that it would bring 1,000 sales and service staff out of furlough to cope with high demand online. This tallies with my own experience of car sales enquiry levels and what I have heard from dealer group friends over lockdown. Vertu has 6,000 staff members furloughed, so, assuming the first wave goes well, it probably won’t be too long before more of those people return.
Car sales in coronavirus lockdown
The British Government recently clarified guidelines for selling and handing over cars. As most of garages I frequent are small scale local operations, they have all been open since the start of the lockdown. Many garage owners are one man bands who cannot afford to stop working and who also create no risk to others by going into work, as they are isolated inside a locked workshop.
The main problem with garage work right now is getting the parts. Fabrication for restoration and paint prep etc are OK to complete but, if the local Euro Car Parts does not have the parts on the shelf, it’s a case of scouring online sources for available parts as many of the parts wholesalers and distribution centres are closed. I have ordered a lot of parts online for my projects and they have all come in fairly short order, even when coming from as far away as Latvia and Lithuania.
Watching other countries taking cautious first steps out of their respective lockdowns has provoked some interesting questions, but getting fully “back to normal” (defined as “how things used to be”) could take years, according to some commentators I’ve read this week. I’m not sure there will ever be a “get back to normal” for World 2.0. A new normal is perhaps a more likely scenario and it will not be unwelcome. We can certainly hope for the best.
Porsche’s other measures to counter the spread of coronavirus remain in place at this time. An increased level of “mobile working” will continue and meetings will be held as video or telephone conferences. The company ban on business travel continues to apply.
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RM Sotheby’s has added more Porsche content to its rescheduled 2020 Essen Techno Classica auction on June 24-27. The catalogue now totals 215 lots, including twenty-nine Porsche cars: nine 356s, one 914, two 912s, seventeen 911s and a 904. There is also a Spider replica with 1600cc Beetle running gear.
The 911s include seven impact bumper models, dating from a 1974 2.7-litre Coupe to a 1988 911 Turbo. All merit closer inspection.
Finished in Light Yellow with red leather trim, chassis number 9114102746 is a 1974 911 Coupe said to be in largely original condition throughout. Described by the auctioneers as ‘immaculate’, it has had a repaint in its original colour, and is accompanied for sale by a toolkit, space-saver spare wheel, owner’s manuals, and correct period radio.
The newest G-model 911 in the current catalogue is chassis number WP0ZZZ93ZJS000080: a 1988 911 Turbo. Showing just under 117k kilometres, the late four-speed LHD 930 is finished in Marine Blue with special order light grey trim. The driver’s seat is heated and this car also has a sunroof.
Two 3-litre 911s are offered: a 1977 Carrera 3.0 Coupe previously shared on Ferdinand and a 1981 Porsche 911 SC Targa. Finished in Platinum Beige Metallic over Black Pascha trim and riding on 15″ Fuchs, the SC Targa showing 120k kms is said to be unrestored and will lay down an interesting marker. The photos show several points to a trained eye but the car is handsome nonetheless.
Finally for the impact-bumper cars, a 1984 3.2 Coupe in Grand Prix White with Burgundy trim The seats are showing the usual seam splits and the original wheel is missing, which sort of makes me wonder what else is up with it. All air-cooled 911s including early 3.2s like to wear valve guides and piston rings, so it would be good to see a mention of a previous top end rebuild to the engine.
There are ten more 911s entered in the sale. A total of eight 911s are up without reserve and I look forward to seeing their final prices. June will come up quickly after lockdown and it will be interesting to see whether any pent-up demand has accrued for cars of this era, or whether people will wait to see how the second half of the year shakes out economically.
Despite the doom and gloom one reads in the news, there is a quite bit of business going on behind the scenes during lockdown. I wouldn’t be too hasty to pronounce things dead as yet.
Sir Stirling Moss has passed away aged 90. A sad day, but this was a life very well lived by a man so well loved. He will be missed.
Moss was a real Porsche enthusiast who notably owned a 718 RS 61 Spider. Porsche reunited Stirling and the RS 61 at Goodwood a few years ago. However, Moss was more famous for his achievements with Mercedes, particularly at the 1955 Mille Miglia. The silver arrows were always keen to pay tribute to Sir Stirling and organised a wonderful 60th anniversary tribute at the 2015 Mille Miglia.
At the Mille Miglia 2015, Sir Stirling Moss again took the wheel of the same Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR with starting number 722 in which he won the thousand-mile 1955 Italian road race from Brescia to Rome and back, in the best-ever time. At his side was then team-mate Hans Herrmann, who six decades earlier was another hot contender for victory. Herrmann delivered a stunning performance in 1955, but his race ended due to an unfortunate defect on the Passo di Futa while lying in second place.
The story of the 1955 Mille Miglia is now legend, but there is much more to know about Stirling. Below is a great documentary about his life, presented by the ever-watchable Sir Patrick Stewart. Take the time to learn more about a great racing hero and our fellow Porsche admirer.
I have a great Stirling Moss story but it is NSFW! He was just a proper old boy. We can all learn something from Stirling.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Happy Easter to all! I hope this is a good weekend for everyone. I’m busier than ever with valuations and client work during lockdown, but losing the long daily school run has freed up some time for personal projects, including improvements to my Porsche 911 forum at impactbumpers.com.
About ImpactBumpers.com
I started the impactbumpers Porsche 911 forum after a conversation with a friend who despaired of the lack of support from established Porsche Clubs for the lowly impact bumper cars, which were then regarded as throwaway ‘starter’ 911s. I like all of Ferry’s creations but, as a child of the ’70s, my passion has always been focused on impact-bumpered 911s from 1974 to 1989. After a decade in various marque ownership clubs, I was over the system’s lacklustre parochialism and am not much of a club-type at the best of times. As Groucho put it, I wouldn’t want to be in any club that would have me as a member. The online space offered the chance to construct a completely different member experience.
After playing around with various types of discussion forum software, the forum launched on February 14th, 2006. My aim was to get maybe twenty like-minded people on board to start working on their own cars and sharing their experiences and give us some buying power for better deals on track days. Fourteen years later (and despite a fairly hardcore early routine of deleting accounts that had not been used in the previous twelve months), the board has over 7,000 members.
Some are less active than others, but all are welcome as long as they behave! Pointless arguments (hello religion and politics) are not permitted – save them for Facebook. Those who throw stones and hide behind keyboards get a holiday. There is no adult content anywhere: the board is son-and-daughter safe, so the kids can keep using your laptop or iPad.
The board sets out to support an upbeat experience of Impact Bumper ownership and has managed to do that pretty well over the years. The forum for those who have had an IB (forumspeak for a car from ’74 to ’89) and moved on to other classics, but would like to keep enjoying the IB camaraderie, is one of the busiest boards on the site.
Impact Bumper upgrades
Easter Sunday has ushered in several upgrades to the board to make things better and brighter. First and most obvious is a new design. It’s a work in progress, although this is the bones of it. Driving my 1976 911 Carrera 3.0 (a.k.a. The Orange) on the Col de Turini for two days just after going full-time freelance in May 2010 was a defining moment for me in connecting to the soul of these cars, so that is the main header pic.
Second is the addition of a feedback system. In the bottom right corner of every post, members now see a heart icon. Hovering over that opens three options: like, thanks and a laugh. Liking or saying thanks for a post earns a ‘reputation point’ for the poster. Total points earned going forward are displayed in the member’s profile. There are no points for a laugh as we should all be bringing good humour!
Members get a set number of points to give out per day and daily points do not carry over. The idea is that a post to say cool or great or whatever can be more than some want to give, but clicking thanks or like gives the poster a feel-good moment. One can also go back in time to say thanks to a post that has helped you. Making one another feel good in times of stress and bringing common sense to Porsche ownership is at the heart of the forum, so we will see how this goes and tweak it as appropriate.
The third upgrade is a raft of other small tweaks including links to associated social profiles, a number of new forums to break content into more digestible indexes, and a few improvements under the engine cover. I think it is all a step forward.
IB Membership and Trade Ads
More new modules will be added as testing progresses, so more new features are coming. I have always resisted offering membership packages and trade advertising, preferring to bankroll the forum myself to keep it indepedent, but it is now becoming more work not to offer these features, so the options will launch over the next few weeks. I hope this may also support independent Porsche specialists, some of whom could find things tricky as the lockdown shakes out.
For now, I hope anyone who has not been on IB in a while will revisit the impactbumpers.com forum and see what they think. Feel free to contact me with any notes or enquiries, or if you can no longer access your original account.
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Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
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