Part of the museum’s HO scale train layout. Photos courtesy Hans-Peter Porsche TraumWerk.
When your family name is Porsche, you learn from an early age to dream big. That’s certainly the case with Hans-Peter Porsche, the son of Ferry Porsche, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and a member of the Supervisory Board of Porsche Holdings. He’s also a collector of toys, and thanks to his son’s insistence, Hans-Peter will soon open a massive toy museum complex, called the Dream Factory, in Anger-Aufham, Bavaria, Germany.
A portion of the museum complex, under construction.
Judging by numbers alone, the scope of the museum borders on the incomprehensible. The main building itself occupies over 274,000 square feet, and the HO-scale model railroad layout contained within its walls uses roughly 1.7 miles of track. Not only does the layout depict the terrain around the museum, but it encompasses scenery from Austria and Switzerland as well, and for visitors wanting to see larger model trains, a narrow gauge railway will carry passengers on a one mile trek around a portion of the grounds. Parking, for both cars and tour buses, will be ample, and those arriving by electric car will find charging stations on site, too.
Porsche 356 tin toy.
The massive HO-scale model railroad, which features Märklin trains exclusively, took over two years to build. Up to 180 trains can be staged, with 40 trains in operation at any given time. Showing that Herr Porsche has both a sense of history and a sense of humor, the layout will feature scale models of several Porsche factories, including the main one in Stuttgart and the Algaier Traktor factory in Friedrichshafen; a replica of Ferdinand Porsche’s house in Stuttgart, including the garage where the prototype for the Volkswagen Beetle was assembled; and even a model of Hans-Peter Porsche’s own house.
Those hoping to see more than just model trains won’t be disappointed. The collection will include stuffed animals, early tin toys, model cars, model boats and model planes, too. Temporary exhibit spaces spread throughout the complex will be used to exhibit toys of a slightly different nature, namely Hans-Peter’s own collection of Porsche automobiles.
Hans-Peter Porsche TraumWerk is scheduled to open to the public on Saturday, June 20. For more information (exclusively in German, however), visit HansPeterPorsche.com.
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