MERCEDES BENZ MUSEUM
My experience
by Fortunate Mogane, University of Cape Town

It was on the 4th day of being in Germany and the day after an incredibly amazing night celebrating my birthday. We took a bus to the Daimler factory in Stuttgart for a factory tour of the Mercedes-Benz cars, from there we went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. It was for the first time in my life hearing of a car museum, I was excited and in absolute curiosity of what to expect. If there is anything my friends from back home always told me to bring them they would jokingly say “the German machine” i.e. Mercedes Benz.

On arrival to the museum we were welcomed by this mesmerizing big grey building with “Mercedes-Benz Museum” written at the top of the main entrance. We took a group picture in front before walking into the museum. After entering the museum and each person have gotten their ticket we had to take the lift up to the top floor and start from there. I was quite confused with why do we have to start from up but it later made sense when we realized that the building is set up with the oldest cars being at the top and the newest models being at the bottom. It took me some while to figure it out but as we were looking at the cars we realized that we started with the first models of Mercedes-Benz motor vehicles and the years of the making of the car kept being more and more recent.

The one thing that I found to be amazing about the museum was being able to see the evolution of a car. To be able to picture the challenges that were faced using the older models that led to more and more features being added to the car making it what it is today. I remember asking a friend how was it driving in the rain with a car that does not cover you completely, do you not use it on a rainy day or do you just brave it out and drive in the rain?

And of course one cannot go to a Mercedes-Benz Museum without coming out with a favorite car model. My personal favorite was within the recent sports car models. The AMG V8, it is both a beauty and a beast, it looks like a villain and a superhero at the same time. I could only imagine The museum has been one of my greatest experiences in my life. I am inspired to reach my goals and one day drive my kids to school in an AMG myself driving the car on a high way with no other cars on the road but me and my AMG.