Checking out the competition

You may have noticed that I like trains and railroads. Nevertheless, as a transportation engineer I appreciate cars, too, and thus we made our way today to the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart-Untertuerkheim.

Let's start off with a model that most visitors to the museum won't even notice. There's a series of display cases that show state of the art transportation before the advent of the automobile.

Model of river transportation in the 19th century. The Neckar at Esslingen stone bridge. Chain ships transport barges up the river by pulling on a chain that's installed on the river bottom over a distance of 130km.

The museum spans the history of Mercedes Benz cars, trucks, and busses from early times to recently.

A period car. I especially like the shadow effect along the back wall.

The oldest surviving Mercedes.

I really enjoyed the displays in the sports cars section.

Oh yeah, I'd like this one please.

A 300 SL Coupe. Nice.