Life & Style | Motoring
Automotive breath
A John McLaughlin gig in an erstwhile Nazi power station, a room full of vintage beauties,an automobile theme park like no other and a town with a strong motoring legacy.
- By Nitin Nair, Senior features writer
- Published: 00:08 July 2, 2008
A John McLaughlin gig in an erstwhile Nazi power station, a room full of vintage beauties,an automobile theme park like no other and a town with a strong motoring legacy. Nitin Nair discovers this and more in Wolfsburg
I hate adjectives. They have an annoying knack of playing hard-to-get when I really need one. But right now, 'overwhelming' seems fitting to describe what I am feeling.
It's about five degrees outside, but I'm sitting here, warm in this heated theatre done up in rich, red tones listening to guitar hero John McLaughlin launch into a lengthy solo.
What makes the adjective hunt difficult is the setting - this amazing venue. This theatre is actually within the KraftWerk, a power station built by the Nazis in 1938 for the adjacent red brick automobile factory.
Once upon a time, this building supported a vital cog in Germany's war machinery during World War II - the factory, meant to produce the Volkswagen Beetle, was manufacturing ammunition and military vehicles to power the Nazi 'Blitzkreig'.
It's impossible to sit here and not get a sense of the history of this place. On the way up to the auditorium, I was shown a turbine that still works.
But this little flashback, this sepia-toned film reel that's just flashed by my mind's eye, set bizarrely to the soundtrack of McLaughlin in this very industrial setting is giving me goose bumps.
And I have had a few of those since I got to Wolfsburg, a quaint little town 200km west of Berlin, last evening. Wolfsburg may not feature too prominently on Germany's tourist circuit like some of its bigger cities, but this industrial town and home of the Volkswagen empire is drawing visitors now.
I'm walking out, my jacket's collars pointing up to an indigo sky, shivering, secretly missing Dubai's muggy evenings. It's another night at Movimentos, the annual cultural festival hosted every summer (May) by Autostadt at Kraftwerk.
This is unusual. Autostadt, an automobile theme park created and owned by Volkswagen hosting a cultural festival.
"Movimentos is proof that the Autostadt is not just about cars and automobile history, there's something of interest for all our visitors," explains Nicholas Batten, the Autostadt's press contact.
Batten tells me the Autostadt receives about two million visitors every year since it opened in 2000. I can understand why.
I just spent the whole day bouncing around parts of this 25 hectare landscape by the Mittelland Canal, a vast expanse of rolling hill mounds and ultra modern architecture.
All while Grace Slick's wicked voice resonated in my head. "Feed your head," she suggests on Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. With its obtuse references to Alice in Wonderland, I can see why the damn song is stuck in my head. And it has nothing to do with mushrooms.
For somebody who still collects dinky cars and has to be dragged away from the toy stores, I could have spent days at the ZeitHaus - the Autostadt's car museum and biggest attraction.
A five-storey structure with a glass façade, the ZeitHaus has a remarkable collection of cult cars, luxury limousines and prototypes.
So over five levels, I tried to keep my hands to myself having noticed how the staff regularly had to wipe away fingerprints left by excited visitors, who pay 15 euros for a plastic ticket that gives them access to all areas expect the Movimentos venues.
I whistled at the sight of the local siren, the one with the big eye lashes - the Lamborghini Muira. With her big eyelashes around the headlamps, she was considered the hottest thing since Sophia Loren when first unveiled at the Turin Motor Show in 1965.
I stood in awe of the embryonic Porsche Type 60 - the prototype of the first Beetle designed by Ferdinand Porsche in 1938. This car, in fire engine red, would evolve into the Volkwagen Beetle.
More adjectives are headed your way - dizzy, elated and informed. That's how I felt when I stumbled out of ZeitHaus - I had just seen some of the greatest cars in automotive history - the historic Model T Ford, the Bugatti 57 SC, the gorgeous Cadillac V-16, the world's first 16 cylinder production car.
The VW empire has gobbled up quite a few companies over the years - Audi, Bentley, Skoda, Lamborghini and Seat - all of which host car pavilions, all specimens of ultra modern design. Each distinct pavilion celebrates the car's history and showcases the marque's newest cars.
But if I could pick one that stands out, it has to be the tall, black box - the Lamborghini pavilion. Inside this windowless, black box is a cage and inside it is a beast - a yellow Murcielago 640 that's mounted horizontally on the wall.
The show begins with a stunning display of laser lights, smoke and thundering music. And then suddenly, the disc that the Murcielago is mounted on swivels around its central axis and the beast is now out, literally, on the wall of the black box outside.
This is a quite a spectacle and repeats every 20 minutes. Look it up on YouTube, type in 'Autostadt' and 'Murcielago'.
I had seen pictures of the twin car silos that dominate the Autostadt landscape years ago, but to actually see these 200ft high glass cylinders that are temporary car storage areas was like stepping into the realm of science fiction.
I watched in amazement as one of the 400 cars stored in the tower was lifted out from its allocated slot and sent to the car distribution centre for delivery.
The whole process is automated - cars come in to the towers through a tunnel from the adjacent VW factory and are slotted in little parking spots on one of the 20 floors using a robotic loading unit.
When the Kunden Centre (Collection Centre) sends the tower a request for a particular car, the chosen car is moved from its storage area and sent to the collection centre.
This is the essence of the Autostadt. When conceived in 2000, VW wanted a theme park that emphasised the bond between man and machine. Any VW car bought in Germany, Austria or The Netherlands can be collected at the Autostadt on any day of the year except Christmas and New Year's Day, when the theme park is closed.
An estimated 600 cars are delivered every day.
So the purchase of a car becomes a major family outing. While this philosophy maybe very German, the visitors have kept pouring in over the years.
After strolling around the souvenir shops, I headed to the Beef Club, an exclusive restaurant within the Autostadt whose speciality is the Kluft steak, a sort of German rump steak.
Served medium rare, the steak was so juicy that
half-way through, I didn't bother with the pepper sauce anymore. When you ask for drinks served on the rocks here, they take it quite literally - so it arrives with ice-cold pebbles that I'm told are from Scotland.
All this made for a compelling dining experience.
The 30 odd hours seemed to have skidded by. Just as the top of the Kraftwerk's chimneys disappear from my view as the car hurries on to Hanover airport, I sink into the seat, soaking in the sights and sounds of the last two days.
The song in my head's gone, but here's a parting adjective to describe the Autostadt experience: lingering.
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