Visiting the BMW Museum & BMW Welt - Home of the ultimate driving machine

Visiting the BMW Museum & BMW Welt – Home of the ultimate driving machine

The last museum for us to visit was the BMW Museum in Munich. This was my second time here since 2013, and things haven’t changed much. What’s interesting? Let’s see.

So, the big salad bowl you see is the BMW museum. The taller tower is the BMW Welt. We drove, but you can take the train here too and get off at the Olympiazentrum.

It’s not as aesthetic as the Mercedes-Benz Museum, but it certainly is recognizable from a distance.

BMW Welt

The MINI and Rolls Royce brands belong to BMW so you can expect to see a few of them in the BMW Welt.

To be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention to the MINIs, but now I realise, this was where I first encountered the MINI Electric (or MINI Cooper SE). The MINI Cooper Se was launched in Malaysia in 2020, but only 40 of them were brought in (which were all sold out).

You can check out a few Rolls Royce cars too – certainly not within the budget for most of us, but still interesting to look at nonetheless.

We booked a factory tour for this visit, so we had to claim our tickets at the BMW Welt first. If you wish to visit the BMW museum only, you can do so too, but it would be waste not check out the BMW Welt to see the latest offerings by BMW.

BMW Museum

No pictures were allowed during the factory visit, so let’s just get to the displays in the BMW Museum. Like Mercedes, the display starts from the top floor and it’s a leisurely downhill walk to the end.

You’ll first be greeted by some art and design stuff that has been in the museum for some time now. There’s a clay model of the G20 with a section of it cut out to show you the wooden block underneath the clay.

Then there’s some floaty ball stuff that shows the silhouettes of some BMW cars.

There are motorbikes too, but we shall focus on the cars.

Engines

Expect to see some aviation history and some massive engines in the early stages of the display.

Most engines are 6 cylinders and above, so it’s quite interesting to observe. You would have to be an absolute nerd to really appreciate these things. Good stuff.

It’s interesting to see how complex the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) has become since its earlier days. So much thought and trial and error has gone into developing these mechanical beings.

And while highly functional, merely staring at the curves and finish of these engines evoke imaginary memories speed, raw power, great sounds, and the smell of burning gasoline. Just look at those shiny bell mouth intakes and crazy headers.

Now, it looks like we shall be moving on to permanent magnet AC motors and solid-state lithium batteries. Interesting times ahead, but we shall not forget how crazy things got with the internal combustion engine.

The Relics

I’m no BMW connoisseur, and I’m not going to pretend to be an expert. Best I can do is to share pictures of some the older BMWs I found interesting during my visit.

BMW 328 Coupe

BMW M1

The Cabriolets

Nice to look at but so practical in Malaysia, BMW’s famous cabriolets like the Z1, Z3, and Z8 were parked next each other towards the end of the exhibition.