Disneyland for Volkswagen Fans

If you’re planning to visit Germany next year, and happen to be near VW’s famous Wolfsburg plant, then Volkswagen will have a whole park dedicated to the Volkswagen Group brands. The park will include the whole spectrum of the VW Group, with Pavilions dedicated to the latest models from VW, Bentley, Bugatti, Lambourgini, Rolls Royce, SEAT and Skoda.
Autosadt (German for Car City) is a whole new concept for the factory town; a 800 million marks theme park development, and the theme is cars. Due to be completed by the middle of 2000, the park will be split into several sections.
The Piazza will be the entrance and introduction to the park as a whole, and will include a restaurant specialising in recipes from all the countries where Volkswagen Group cars are built.
The KonzernForum will showcase the latest Volkswagen technologies, with a Cinema showing films of how concept designs are turned into real cars. This area will also feature the Autolab, showing exhibits demonstrating automotive technologies, from braking systems to fuel injection.
The Automuseum will be split into two sections. The first will record the history of the car and its social and economic impact over the last century. The second half will display a collection of historic vehicles, not necessarily all VW models, but showcasing VW’s successful history.
The centre of the park, the Kunden Centre, will be dominated by two massive cylinders full of brand new cars waiting for their proud owners to take delivery. The AutoZylinder towers can hold 400 cars at a time, which are transported fresh from the Wolfsburg production line via underground tunnels. The Kunden Centre will also feature driving simulators, a supervised children’s area and the Service World.
The Wolfsburg Ritz Carlton will provide those visitors wishing for a long stay up to 170 rooms and five star luxury. If you can't drive there, then the factory is within walking distance of the German high speed ICE train from Berlin or Hannover.
Volkswagen are the first car manufacturer to create such a large dedicated visitor centre, and the work should pay of, with what I believe to be an already booked up schedule even before it has opened.

Louis Henwood