BMW Building and Museum, Munich

I have no particular interest in cars, but if you do, the cylindrical building of BMW, and its adjoining museum must be a mecca. When we passed by, they were expanding it, so this photo shows a bit of a building site, but you can still see heaven for the car lover.

I must confess that I was not interest in this building ... perhaps I was interest in see it from outside as at avery guide of the city you will find it ...

Very near the Olympiapark, you can see it from it and from its tower ... Inside there is a Museum ... I didn't get in because there where thousands of things I wanted to see and feel more that this ... but I can imagen it must be very interesting

from 9 to 17
admision until 16h
3 euros

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If you are a BMW enthusiast like I am, you have to make your way to the BMW Welt. The BMW Welt is where customers can pick up their car if they are doing the European Delivery Program. The BMW Museum is located across the street (I did not have time to go visit). The Welt is open to the public.

The Welt:
Located inside the Welt are showcases of the technologies that go in a BMW to make it one of the finest luxury sport vehicles ever made. You will also find a small Bistro and a BMW Lifestyle shop inside the Welt. There are some items at the Lifestyle store that are only available there so be sure to bring some cash, or your credit card! I learned the hard way. hehe.

The Factory Tour:
It is suggested that you Call BMWNA to make a reservation to take the tour of the facility. I had called to reserve but BMWNA never got back to me on my reservation. The tour is not free and cost a few Euros, but it is worth it to go. If you do make it to the Welt, but did not make a reservation for the tour, you can always ask the desk at the entrance if they have any space left for a tour. I was quite surprise that they still had room for the English tour, but when we started the tour, there was a total of 7 of us. Good number since it's not cramped or anything, but there maybe more people depending on the time of year that you go. Other non-English groups had about 20-30 people on their tour, so we were fortunate enough to have a small group. The tour takes about and hour to two hours depending on how fast your tour guide is going. Inside, you'll see employees hard at work and working side by side with machines like a choreographed dance.

Plan on being there the whole day if you decide to do the factory tour. I wish I had a second day there since there was so much stuff to see (yes, I am an enthusiast).

Other information:
You can get a bird's eye view of the BMW Facility if you walk across to the Olympic Park and go up the tower. It's also a nice place to get a nice view of Munich.

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Inside the Welt is very vast and very very contemporary......all kinds of simulations for people to try out on the first floor of the welt. Lots of information on the car, the safety aspects, certain things explained about various functions of the car. Gives you a great understanding of the enginnering behind BMW. Its a beautiful open space, 3 floors. 3 restaurants total, one on each floor..... first floor is a cafe and very good , you can take the food with you or eat at the tables provided. Second floor is an open restaurant and bar and third one, on the 3rd floor looked like a fancier place. There are several gift shops and various models of cars all over and lots and lots of information on how the cars are made, the enginnering, how they are first this clay model and how models are reviewed and only one model survives out of the clay models....and so much goes into every clay model, but only one gets selected and built. Truly amazing.

BMW Museum: Very nicely done. Old cars and new ones, prototypes,etc. I think its more of a guy thing , the museum, or if you are really really into cars, but i still enjoyed going. If you are super into cars, you would love the museum ( race cars there,etc)

BMW factory tour: A must do if you visit the Welt! i got so much out of this. How the cars are put together, the precision, everything......you see all of the robots, really amazing.August 03, 2009 and August 24, 2009- no plant tours because no production( summer time off)

Welt: Just walk around this amazing place! its so big, open, beautiful.......a must see. On the outside ..is amazing architecture....at night it glows an organge red....

A good distance outside the city center was the BMW Museum, which was under renovation when we visited.

The museum set up a temporary exhibit in another location – a longish walk from the original museum. The temporary museum was so disappointing – only a few cars and even less motorcycles.

There were no interactive exhibits such as the ones in the original museum. We were in and out pretty quickly. Would not recommend going to the temporary exhibit at all.

I've been to the original years ago and that is worth a visit. If you go be sure to make advanced reservations to take a tour of the BMW plant.

Hours 9-5, 3E

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BMW Museum, which was opened in 1973 is one of the highlights of a visit to Munich. Visitors to this museum gets an insight into the development of BMW cars from old vintage model to excellent wonder machine of modern world. Various types of motor bikes are also displayed here. BMW was formed in 1913 for manufacturing air craft engines. In 1917, the company started production of motorcycles and in 1928 started production of motor cars. Today BMW cars are branded as one of the best of its' kind in the world.
The museum is very near to Olympic Park which is approachable by U Bahn-3 (Metro train) from Hopt Bahnof or Marienplatz.
This is an exciting and fascinating place for lovers of automobiles.

The BMW plant in Munich is where the 3-series saloon and touring (i.e. estate) is manufactured - plus engines for other different models in the range. It is also home to FIZ - which is BMW's main R&D facility. The site covers a very large area in the north of the city easily accessible using U-Bahn line U3. It is literally opposite the Olympiapark on the other side of the Peteulring dual carriageway.

Of course, you can always go and visit BMW Welt (the corporate museum) which is being rebuilt and will open in 2008 (in the meantime there is BMW Mobile Tradition, a temporary museum in the Olympiapark which is literally just over the road).

But if you have any interest in engineering, we found something even better to do i.e. go on a guided tour of the BMW plant. Anyone is welcome. To book, just visit the webpage link I have placed below. The tour starts at 6pm and if you go on a Thursday it is in English language.

The plant runs 24 hours a day so you will actually see the 3-series being manufactured. The tour lasts 2.5 hours and starts in the giant press shop where 60 tonne rolls of steel are turned into body panels. It moves on to the body shop where a troupe of robots assemble the panels and spot weld them together. You will move on through the paint shop, engine assembly and lastly through final assembly to end of the production line where the cars literally roll-off.

The whole enterprise is a stunning feat of technology and organisation. The body shop is, for instance, 97% automated. It is a truly amazing fact that the entire 'body-in-white' (the steel shell) of the 3-series is assembled with hardly a human hand going near it!

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The BMW museum is a nice place to visit if you are into cars and/or the history of the company. We didn't spend much time here as my wife wasn't into it, but it is neat just to see the BMW building. The lobby has model cars and an airplane motor on display among other things, and they sell a fair amount of souvenirs so if you need a gift for that car lover, it might be worth a stop.