Holy crap. HOLLLY CRAP. I cannot believe what I just experienced in Munich: The greatest hotel in the history of humankind. It’s called “Motor World,” and it’s a reasonably-priced, nice hotel embedded inside an incredible automotive universe that is accessible 24 hours a day. I’m legitimately in awe that such a place exists, because it was the most fun I’ve ever had in a hotel by far. Here, let me show you.
I was just in Germany driving cool cars for the German Car of the Year showdown, and also hanging out with my parents, who live just outside Nürnberg. It was a great time. I met an amazing Jeep fan in the Alps, and stopped by his incredible alpine restaurant. I spotted some beautiful cars on the roads. I got to drive my diesel, manual Chrysler Voyager Minivan. I did some great hiking. It was nice. And one of the highlights was Motor World.
Motor World was actually recommended to me by Kathrin Buchmann, who — together with her husband Rainer — are the genius minds behind the incredible Porsche tuning house bb-Auto. I’d just met the duo at a great car museum/storage area/event venue called Klassikstadt in Frankfurt. Here’s a short peek at that, if you’re curious:
I met the Buchmanns while hanging out with Autopian cofounders and the folks who run Galpin Motors Beau Boeckmann and Jeff Skobin (also, a friend who wants to remain anonymous):
Frankfurt Schnitzel ain’t Munich Schnitzel, but it ain’t bad! (In my opinion, Jaegerschnitzel shouldn’t be breaded, but, again, it ain’t bad!):
Anyway, I followed Mrs. Buchmann’s advice, and booked a night at Motor World in Munich for 103 Euros — honestly, a great price for a not-crappy hotel.
The location was actually clutch, as I was driving my diesel manual Chrysler Voyager — a vehicle banned from Munich’s “Umweltzone” or “Environmental zone.” Also called a “green zone” in other cities, this part of Munich requires a special emissions sticker/permit, which my old diesel van is ineligible for due to its rather NOx-y and soot-y nature.
The Outside of Motor World isn’t the prettiest. The grass isn’t in amazing shape, and the parking lot has lots of weeds growing between the bricks. The building itself, an old train depot, is vast, but far from an aesthetic wonder. Still, if you’re looking for a beautiful hotel, you need only to walk through those doors and behold this:
Lovely aroma emanates through the air as bakeries and high-class restaurants sit adjacent to car showrooms, car merchandise shops, automotive displays, car-themed conference rooms, and on and on. A beat put on by a DJ set the tone for what may be the real-life Autopia:
Right away, I noticed a desk made out of the front end of a truck:
In the lobby I saw some vintage gas pumps:
Here’s a car-themed merch store:
There was some great automotive artwork just as I entered:
Oh, and the dining establishments inside were amazing:
Check out these little chocolate Fiat 500s, Mercedes AMG GTs, Porsche 911s, and Lamborghinis!:
If you need sugar for your coffee, you grab it out of an old oil can:
Or you can grab it out of a VW Bus:
Anyway, before I explored much more, I checked out the room, which was on the second floor (labeled as first upper-floor, or 1, in Germany), requiring use of the greatest elevator ever:
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That’s right; when the elevator lifts or lowers, a sport-car engine can be heard revving over the loudspeaker; can anyone identify that engine note?
Upon exiting the elevator, I was greeted with the nice photo of a Porsche 356.
The hallway to my room featured F1 cars, arrows, and stop signs.
The room itself featured a small motorcycle picture on the wall (shown in the Insta clip) and a huge car-themed mural behind the television.
Otherwise, the room was fairly standard, though quite nice in my opinion given the price I paid.
Now, before some of you get too disappointed, I’ll reiterate that this was the cheapest room at the property, and that you can get much, much cooler rooms, including one that allows you to see your vehicle on the other side of a pane of glass! Check this out!:
If if you’re into Motorcycling, you can also park your bike within sight of your bed:
Would I pay $400 to look at my diesel, manual Chrysler Voyager while I sleep? Umm, maybe? It’s pretty awesome, but what’s even more awesome — and something I’m sure many of you were going to ask about — are car-themed beds. While these are not available at Motor World in Munich, they are available at Motor World in Stuttgart. Check these out!:
What’s wild is that a night in one of these rooms is only about 155 Euros, or about $180. Not terrible!
“Wait, there’s more than one Motor World?” you ask? Yes, indeed. There are Motor Worlds all across Europe, it turns out!:
Anyway, let’s get back to the one I stayed at in Munich.
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The way it was set up was, the hotel was on one side, up high, while cars sat down below and also in a tall glass storage area that I’ll show in a second. You can see the hotel on the left side of the image below:
Here’s another vantage point, with the hotel at the top right of the image:
Notice how the hotel is meant to look like a train. That’s because, as I previously mentioned, this building was once a train depot:
Here you can see some old photos of the location, with the hotel in the background:
Exploring a bit, I found conference rooms with racing seats:
This one’s themed after some kind of train depot control center:
I found helmets from famous racing drivers:
Here are some autographs from famous drivers:
The public bathroom is checker-flag themed, with race car photos and a sink wrapped in a literal car tire:
I found an oil dispensing machine:
I sat on a wrench-bench!:
The bench itself is made of gears, brake pad backing plates, vice grips, bolts, and more hardware. The adjuster screw is a coil spring!:
Plus there were car-themed quotes all over the place:
Above all, there were cars — wonderful, quirky, rare machines, and they were accessible 24 hours a day! I show many of them in the Instagram videos I embedded above, but here are some stills:
That car on the left is a German microcar called the BAG-Spatz. Our friends at The Lane Motor Museum have some info on their site about this magical little car:
The original design of the Spatz was penned by German automaker Egon Brütsch. He was one of the world’s most prolific microcar engineers and designed eleven different car models between 1952 and 1958, such as the Mopetta—but he hardly sold any. He relied mostly on selling licenses to produce his designs. He built the Brütsch 200 Spatz (German for Sparrow), a diminutive, smooth space saucer-like open three-wheeler he’d presented at the Paris Salon in 1954. It was attractive and stylish, made mostly of fiberglass without a chassis. This was in the early days of fiberglass and its strengths were often over-estimated! Inevitably, the Spatz cracked in many places.
Harald Friedrich, co-owner of the German machine tool company, Alzmetall, purchased the license to produce the Brütsch 200 Spatz in 1954. However, the car proved to be unroadworthy. Friedrich hired Tatra engineer Dr. Hans Ledwinka to redesign the car. In Ledwinka’s hands, the new model was restructured with a much needed central backbone tube and a more stable four-wheel layout, instead of the original three. The front wheels hung on a separate subframe and the rear wheels were on swing axles. Strut suspension and hydraulic brakes were also added. The 191cc single cylinder Fichtel & Sachs engine was retained, but relocated in front of the rear wheels, which gave it great balance. The new model possessed a similar look, except the Plexiglas windshield had been replaced with split glass. By then, the original car had been altered so much Friedrich believed they were free from paying any licensing fees, though Brütsch would later take them to court. Friedrich prevailed.
Yes, that’s a World War II Jeep (Willys MB) glistening beautifully in the sunlight:
The Rolls Royce was decked out with Muhammad Ali paraphernalia. The Greatest used to own one of these; I’m not sure if it’s this one, but I doubt it:
Then there are the huge car-storage elevators:
Holy crap, what is that?:
As my colleague Patrick George pointed out, this is a Cizeta! That’s a hyper-rare car built by an Italian engineer in the U.S. Our pals at The Petersen Automotive Museum have a whole writeup on this car. Here’s a little snippet:
The Cizeta-Moroder V16T was the brainchild of former Lamborghini test driver Claudio Zampolli and his business partner, composer Giorgio Moroder. The two sought to build an even more audacious supercar than Lamborghini, and Zampolli called on some of his former Lamborghini colleagues to make it happen. The design was a collaboration between Marcello Gandini, who had penned the Countach, and Zampolli himself. The aluminum body was mounted to a tube chassis and fitted with one of the more ambitious engine designs of any automotive startup. Based on Lamborghini V-8 architecture, a cast-aluminum V-16 block used four cylinder heads, eight cams, and displaced a rather modest 6.0 liters. Still, the output was an impressive 540 hp at 8000 rpm. Mounted transversely with a five-speed transaxle, the engine made for a wide bay. Considering the power on tap, however, a wide body was required to fit over the V16T’s ample tires.
Seriously, the idea that you can walk out of your room at midnight and then just tour this vast museum-like Autopia is just awesome. In fact, that’s exactly what I did:
What a magical place.
Aw, Jeez! Another wonderland I’ll never see. Why nothing cool like this in Kansas? Bummer!
They just stole the concept of the classic remise from berlin and dusseldorf, and made it way more tacky by dumping tons of cash.
Went to their car show in berlin several time, there is nothing authentic in the atmosphere..
Wow this is so amazingly awesome!
To quote Tina Fey, “I want to go to there!”
This is like the old Auto Pub in the GM building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Sit in an old car to have lunch or dinner with a rail dragster hanging upside down from the ceiling above you. I loved that place when I was little.
Damn. I need to go to there. The Spatz microcar has one of my favorite dashboard features of any car ever. They sourced those instrument binnacles from some British company and as you see it has room for two gauges. The company didn’t want to spend the money on anything as luxurious as a tach or a clock, so next to the speedo is actually a fake clock with painted on hands which perpetually show 18 minutes to 12. Utterly ridiculous except at 11:42 when it’s as good as any clock in the world.
Amazing! Cities featuring one of these are now on my list of places to visit.
That place looks awesome! Seems like a franchise in the US would make bank…
Serious question for a US-DE dual citizen – how are you supposed to cover yourself with those square German comforters to sleep at night? I’ve been to Germany several times now, and I haven’t puzzled it out. I always end up waking up with either cold feet or cold nipples, and I’m not that tall – bog standard 6’0″. What’s the trick?
The trick is: Be 5’8″.
Cover the nips and wear socks.
Turn it 45 degrees so you’re under the diagonal?
I saw a table made out of a Tata truck front end at a clothing store somewhere in America a few years ago and it caught my attention. Now I’ve seen two, and apparently they’re readily available online from several sources.
https://www.asianartexports.biz/product/tata-truck-counter-table/
Back when it opened the 1980s, Banana Republic was very different than the business casual officewear place it is today – it was all safari/Indiana Jones/MacGyver adventure-themed clothing. You’ve never seen so much khaki and olive, and it probably sold a million distressed brown leather pilots jackets.
The stores used to have full-on vintage Jeeps in them, and the one near me would often have its hood open, using the empty engine compartment to showcase shirts or whatever.
Vintage Jeeps makes sense. Vintage Indian trucks that weren’t sold here is weird enough for me to have taken note of the table.
Not if you’re shopping at hipster stores, you! I hear you knew about that band before they were big…
I remember the same thing. One of the stores near us had an old Jeep. U still a photojournalist vest from when they first opened their stores. We had on in the Village in NYC and another early store at the South Street Seaport.
Still have my flight jacket and a couple of safari shirts. Their milspec khakis last forever; sadly, my waist size did not.
I’ve also seen a bar cabinet made by cutting a small motorcycle in half and inserting the cabinet in the middle.
OK, that’s all I need to see. Road trip across Europe stopping at every motorworld added to bucket list.
This is what one the old factories in Detroit should be redeveloped into.
That Cizeta-Moroder V16T takes my breath away!
Wow, looks amazing! I will definitely seek went out next time I do a euro delivery!
That is frickin’ car-nerd heaven. Next time I am in Europe I am definitely staying at one of those places. I think my wife would even like it.
“Teach your children to love cars and they’ll never have money for drugs.”
I literally cannot stop laughing.
That was my favourite quote too. I just shared that photo with some friends.
What’s the story with the cars in the elevators? Seems kind of weird to have them there but often not really in a spot where guests can get a good look at them.
It’s private parking spots. Like farah does with wccs in LA. Owners pays between 1.5 and 2.5k (at least some years ago) per month to park there. It’s a concept stolen from the classic remise, it’s even the same boxes, except at the remise, there is mechanic shops to care about your car while you are away, and the boxes are full.
No, it’s not, but they’ve got one killer thing up there: some kind of incredible green sauce that you can spread on top. Holy crap. I usually forgo the saucy schnitzels, but that one is incredible. The creaminess, the way the green herbs go with the tart lemon squeezed on top…it’s perfection. I forgot the name of the sauce, but I’ve only ever seen it up that-a-way.
Also also, I need to go back there just for the schnitzel place that serves a two-liter beer. I would even brave the labyrinthine hell that is the Frankfurt Airport just to get a stupid two-liter beer. It, like eating fondue in Switzerland and sending the Lancer to the ‘Ring, is my other unfinished business in Europe: a big, dumb two-liter beer. I was sadly trying to finish up an article when we went to Frankfurt’s token Giant Schnitzel Place for Silly Tourists (I forgot the name, but basically Onkel Otto: Further North Edition), so I just had a one-liter beer. BUT THEY HAD A TWO-LITER BEER! I AM A SILLY TOURIST! I GOTTA GO BACK.
D’oh, it’s literally “Frankfurter Schnitzel.” https://www.tasteatlas.com/frankfurter-schnitzel
Definitely my favorite.
Found the restaurant, too: Waldgeist. Again, I need this two-liter beer. https://www.derwaldgeist.de/
I gotta try that next time!
I came to post the same thing. I love Grüne Soße (literally “green sauce”), especially on a Schnitzel.
do itttttttt
Looks like you had a lot of fun while working, must be nice LOL
That hotel is epic!
Wow, incredible place! I will likely have to head back to Munich for work and although not really close to the office, might be worth it!
Years ago, I once stayed at a place in the Florida Keys that had an outdoor living room area (many of them do b/c such great weather) with a car port right alongside it.
I could sit on the sofa drinking beer and literally put my hand out and touch my convertible. It made me so happy. It was the biggest part of the trip that I still remember.
Please tell me the shower was just like a car wash. You walk in filthy and walk out clean and dry!
That has never been my experience after walking into and out of a car wash.
Would it come with optional wax?
And undercarriage wash
Most European hotels do include a bidet.
Yeah that’s cool and all, but here in the U.S. we’ve got La Quinta and they’re everywhere!
You can park right outside of your room! Gotta love classic American motels.
Fun fact: “La Quinta” is Spanish for “Next to Denny’s”
Mitch Hedberg is gonna haunt you for that. 🙂
Someone should probably tell Motor World in Stuttgart that the bed in their “Jaguar” room isn’t a Jaguar. It’s a Daimler Sovereign.
Daaaaaamn. Good eye!
Honestly, I think that makes it even cooler. And it’s still a Jag body, so it counts! (ish)
The other hotel has a Jeep bed? A JEEP BED?!?!
Why are you not in your minivan RIGHT NOW driving over there? Who are you and what have you done with the real David Tracy?
The cleaning staff has requested that DT NOT be allowed to stay in Jeep rooms, ever again.
Besides that the bed started to rust before he even checked out.
I…see what you’ve done, here. Ew.
I’m a little shocked that the photos of the race drivers didn’t come to life during your midnight walk through. That’s what happens in museums at night, right?
I was hoping more for the cars themselves to come to life, ala Speed Buggy. Pretty sure David would get engaged to a sentient Willys.
We might finally settle the argument about whether the eyes should be the headlights or on the windshield.
Harry Potter’s Night at the Museum?