SINSHEIM AUTO & TECHNIK
MUSEUM
Most Family Fun Technical Museum in Europe
If
it clinks, clanks, roars, rolls, climbs, shoots you’ll find
it at the Sinsheim Auto and Technik Museum. Driving on the A6 autobahn
between Heilbronn and Heidelberg you look out your rental car window
to see a
Concord Supersonic jet taking off. But 
wait, they aren’t flying
anymore. Then, you notice a Russian TU-144 SST right in front of it,
like a formation
flight. Then a whole collection of other full size aircraft stuck on
stands outside a large building like a giant’s model display.
This is the Sinsheim Technical Museum, a complex of museum buildings
packed full of the most incredible collections of machines, along with
an IMAX theater and outdoor displays and playground for kids.
There
are other technical museums, car museums and aeronautical museums that
are perhaps more precise
and detailed about explaining
the historical
advance of technology (see Mercedes
Benz Museum) but I haven’t found
one that is as fun as Sinsheim. Here you can put a coin (2 euros to be
precise) into a slot and fly a full sized jet plane, or drive a tank
from a set of controls. They’re mounted, so they don’t go
anywhere, but you make them turn and climb. Or make a mechanical Wurlitzer
pipe organ spin and sing.
For
motorsport fans, Sinsheim Museum has the largest permanent Formula
One collection in continental Europe (see Donington
Park Grand Prix Collection) along with motorcycles, land
speed record holders and classic cars. For aficionados of WWII looking
for rare samples of German Wehrmacht armor and weapons, the Sinsheim
Technik Museum has them, Panzer Tanks, 88’s, Folkwolfe and Messerschmitt
fighters,
weapons,
guns, artillery with a full collection of Allied World War II weapons
as well post war, modern tanks, howitzers, rockets
and
missiles - Nato, German, American and Russian. A collection so overflowing,
more and more are parked out back.You’ll find full sized steam
train engines here with wheels that move. Steam tractors and fifties
vintage pink Cadillacs. Overall, there are 3,000 exhibits - 300 classic
cars, 200 motorcycles, 40 racing cars, 20 steam and electric train locomotives.
But
the Sinsheim Museum isn’t all boy’s toys. There are
collections of fashion dresses, furniture, social history, musical instruments
and celebrity memorabilia collections of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Sammy
Davis, Jr. and Jackie “O”, fifties Rock n’ Roll and
Sixties “Chic”. Outdoors there are playgrounds and self operating
rides for the family. Kids can climb up into a collection of full sized
aircraft and slide to the sand box or splash down in an escape pod.
The
Sinsheim Museum of Auto & Technik
is open every day of the year. €16
adults for the whole experience including the IMAX theater €12 for
children. Separate museum or IMAX only tickets can be purchased. The
complex has a restaurant and its own hotel. There is also a sister museum
with more of the collection located in Speyer (see Speyer Technik
Museum).
The Sinsheim Technik Museum is about an hour from Frankfurt Airport or
Stuttgart,
30 minutes
from
Mannheim. © Bargain
Travel Europe
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Sinsheim
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See Also:
ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP MUSEUM FRIEDRICHSHAFEN
FLUGWERFT SCHLEISSHEIM AIRCRAFT MUSEUM
