The Autobau in north-east of Switzerland is an area for more than just petrolheads and racing fans. It is indeed one of the most exciting car museums in Switzerland, where you can get very close to your childhood dreamcars you remember from posters in your former childhood room. Was it a Ferrari F40? Or a Lamborghini Miura? Or did you have some sixties Cadillacs or seventies Ferraris as some Matchbox toy cars? Well, you might get to see some of these in Romanshorn.
All cars are lined up and displayed in the former oil storage tanks of Romanshorn. Another building used to be a round oil tank with a storage space of more than 2.4 million liters oil.
So what to expect?
You can expect a full range of various sports and race cars starting around the sixties up to very new technological masterpieces. The variety spreads from a 1965 Ford Mustang to a Sauber F1 car and even a TopFuel Dragster is on display. From mass produced old-timers up to very limited Hypercars.
There are some guides walking around in the "Pitwalk" which know a lot about the cars and do open some up to show you the engine or maybe let you sit in. These are some great experiences which turns the Autobau into a very unique spot to spend time in.
Most of the race cars in the Autobau collection used to be Fredy Lienhard's own cars to participate various racing events. He started his racing career as a child by racing soap-boxes, continued with Go-Karts and so on... You get a very detailed look at Fredy Lienhard's career at the Autobau Erlebniswelt. I can really recommend you to take a closer look to his very well documented racing life.
Another reason why you should visit the Autobau Erlebniswelt is because there is a lot of extra program going on. Beside the usual opening hours on Wednesdays and Sundays, they open the location on several other days as well. For their "Roll-Out" events for example where they take out one of their cars to do some laps on the small privat circuit in front of the museum. Visitors are able to win some passenger rides on facebook and by buying a ticket for the museum on that day. I've already been to a lot of these events and it has always been a blast. I even had the opportunity to have a ride in the Alfa Romeo 8C and some others. One of my friends won a passenger ride in the Ferrari 488 GTB 70th Anniversary last year. So it's quite possible to have a short ride one day. And that makes the Autobau even more special. It's always a great atmosphere on these event. A lot of smiles, laughs and happy faces! You can really feel, that the Autobau wants to give you that kind of extra experience you never get somewhere else. That's probably why I keep returning to this stunning place.
Lately, Fredy Lienhard senior retired and his son, Fredy Alexander Lienhard turned to be the new chairman. He's very keen on bringing the Autobau further with new events like the "Carspotting" series they launched this summer or with a high presence at several car shows like Cars & Coffee or some local car meetings on weekends. That plays well together, because the cars need to be driven. And that's exact what they want to do. So we can exept to see some more events coming up in the future.
To sum it all up, the Autobau is a very great place to be on rainy Sundays or shiny weekends when some cars are out and need to be seen driving. I can promise, you will be overwhelmed by entering the museum. A truly great place which deserves a lot more attention because it's still a bit of an insider tip in the area.
Here are a few more impressions I lately shot for Fredy and the Autobau Erlebniswelt. Enjoy!