An afternoon at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg

A visit to Germany is always a treat. When the weather is nice and cool, you get to escape the treacherous Singapore heat and humidity. But other than enjoying a nice perspiration-free walk around town, there is also the joy of sampling the country's divine beer selection and obscure car population.

The ultimate GTI, the 650bhp Golf GTI W12-650

On our recent 'workliday' in Berlin to rub shoulders with the new Volkswagen Tiguan, we also spent a day in Wolfsburg, the fifth largest city in the German state of Lower Saxony, famous for the location of Volkswagen AG's headquarters and the Autostadt.

What, then would be a better way to spend our time in Wolfsburg than to tour the Autostadt - the car guy's playground adjacent to the Volkswagen factory?

After all, how often do you get to check out all the cool stuff from the group's model range - Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Ducati, Lamborghini, MAN, Neoplan, Porsche, Scania, SEAT and Skoda Auto.

The Autostadt

Check out the cross section construction of the Audi A6

Translated as 'Car City' in German, the Autostadt is a place of marvel modern architecture (home to the largest glass doors in the world and the longest printed line), showcasing its history to visitors and the company's passion for sheer automotive pleasure.

At the main building, we got to check out the technologies behind the builds of cars like the Audi A6, Lamborghini Aventador, Porsche Panamera SE Hybrid and Golf GTI, just to name a few.

There were also exhibitions educating visitors on the importance of modern sustainability, and interactive information about Volkswagen AG's advancements in electromobility.

Volkswagen's Car Towers

Each of the fully automated, high-rise stacks has space for up to 400 vehicles

The adjacent building we entered was none other than the illustrious Volkswagen Car Towers, which are used as storage for new Volkswagens and connected to the Volkswagen factory by a 700-metre underground tunnel.

Cars that reach the towers are transported up at a speed of 1.5m/s. When customers purchase a Volkswagen (the main brand only, not the sub-brands) in selected European countries, they are offered the option of having it delivered to the dealership they bought it from, or travel to Autostadt for collection.

For the second option, the Autostadt supplies customers with free entrance, meal tickets and the experience of watching on screen as the automatic elevator picks up the selected car in one of the towers. In doing so, the car reaches the customer without having driven a single metre, and the odometer thus reads '0'.

History and classics

Volkswagen began work on the first generation Scirocco, a sportier option of the Golf, during the early 1970s

Also at the Autostadt is the ZeitHaus, or 'Time House'. Here, you get to explore the Volkswagen Group's history and heritage, as well as the automobiles' evolution through the years. While the museum isn't huge, it's organised and curated in a way that will awe casual observers, but really arouse true gearheads.

Here, we got face to face with cars like the Hanomag Komissbrot, the earliest true spiritual and technical ancestor of the Beetle, a 1912 Bugatti, the Porsche Type 60, the very last Beetle to roll off the line in Mexico in 2003, Formula Super Vee and tons of other old Volkswagens like the first Golf and Scirocco.

Truly, you don't have to be a huge Volkswagen fan to have a ball of a time at Autostadt.

If you, too, want to enjoy the Autostadt experience as we did, Volkswagen Singapore is more than happy to provide you with instructions on how to get there and what to do.