I took a day trip down to Wolfsburg from Berlin today with the others. It’s about an hour by train.
We had first class tickets thanks to Volkswagen Malaysia – it’s 76 Euros each way. The train travels quite fast though, the display says 135 km/h so I reckon it’s about 135 km away from Berlin. 😉
This is an interesting city primarily coz it won’t exist without the auto industry. The Autostadt (literally “auto city” in German) is the reason the city has prospered back in the day.
Interesting trivia: The roof area of the Autostadt is larger than the entire Principality of Monaco!
It was the bit of trivia that stuck the most to me. Heh.
I collect facts like this coz I’m a bit of a general knowledge freak. Aud is like that too, I guess we’re just one of those people who absorbs the most random facts like a sponge.
Unlike her, I usually get it wrong when I regurgitate the facts though. Haha.
Anyway, the Volkswagen group owns nine brands – Volkswagen, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Audi, Bentley and several others. I was quite surprised by this. I didn’t know Lamborghini was owned by them.
There are a lot of pavilions representing each car brand in Autostadt. The factory itself has its own doctors, restaurants, and stuff like that. There are several pavilions worth mentioning.
Bugatti. This beautiful and large (from the outside) pavilion only has one car. Yes, it’s the Bugatti Veyron.
Lamborghini also has a single car in their pavilion but what made it truly awesome is the intense hardstyle music playing with smoke and strobing lights. You gotta check out this video to experience what it feels like.
The car also flips to the outside, I didn’t know until after we went out and I took a photo of the car and asked Nigel to help take a photo of me with the car and the car flipped back inside, leaving a blank wall. Nifty.
Volkswagen has a pavilion that features two very interesting cars:
The new Beetle. No, not the Beetle from the Das Auto show in Malaysia last year, this is the latest one that hasn’t hit our shores yet.
[Edit: My mistake, it’s the same one that VW brought to Malaysia last year. It’s still not for sale in Malaysia though.]
A custom Up! electric car.
I reckon it looks a lot better than the stock version. 😀
Up! also isn’t available in Malaysia yet, so I got a 4GB USB drive for 13.30 Euros (about RM 52). I collect thumb drives and I also tend to buy souvenir t shirts when I travel. I usually don’t wear them, I have a Stonehenge t shirt that I haven’t even opened from my backpacking trip to London a couple of years back.
Anyway, the Volkswagen pavilion also has an interactive screen where you can put in your name, email address and make a music video out of it and send it to yourself. It’s part of their Think Blue initiative.
I intentionally didn’t use English even though that option was available. I used German to muddle my way though. Heh.
Posted: 8:32 am Wolfsburg time (GMT +2)
