As a devout car enthusiast, there’s an inexplicable allure in witnessing the birth of a new automobile – it’s akin to witnessing the arrival of a new life into the world. Each factory visit is a chance to delve into the heart of automotive innovation and craftsmanship. So delve with me into my visit to the Volkswagen Factory Tour and see why you should visit it too.
Before The Visit
In order to get inside the VW plant, you have to go through a few steps. You can’t simply show up there any day or time you want and be accepted into a visitor group. Here’s what you need to do, so bear with me just a for a moment:
- Go VW’s website to the calendar where you can choose you preferred day of visit:
https://autostadt.regiondo.de/werktour
There, you can choose “English” in the right corner above.
- The times you can choose vary from 10:20 AM, over 10:50 AM, 11:20 AM all the way to 14:50 PM
- Once you’ve selected the time and date, you can proceed to the shopping cart and pay for the tickets. The Volkswagen factory tour price is 10 Euros for one person.
- Alternatively, (or in case you should have any questions), you can write an e-mail to the service staff available under the following address: service@autostadt.de
You’ll also need to book a hotel in the vicinity of the factory, in case you come from far away. There are plenty of them around. I didn’t need to book anything, because it’s just a 3-hour drive from where I live.
If you drive there by car (like I did), then you can park your vehicle at Allerpark, where the parking spots are free. However, you’ll have to walk a bit (1 km). Alternatively, you can park at the designated parking spot, but that will cost you money. Expect prices of 2 Euros an hour and more.
Now, with the boring stuff out of the way, let’s get to the interesting parts of my VW factory tour.
The Guided Factory Tour
So, I booked my tour for the 10:20 AM time slot and arrived at one of the parking lots. From there, a shuttle bus will take all the guests to the factory premises. From there, visitors enter one of the buildings and get into an open car train (in German: Autozug or Golfbahn). The guide driving the train will explain the several production stages to you via the microphone. Inside you are not allowed take any pictures.
Once on the car train, the guide will take you through select stages of the production process. The models being made there include the VW Golf (and all its derivatives like the GTI and R), the compact crossovers VW Tiguan and its cousin the Seat Tarraco (There are no Seats in America). It’s worth noting that the factory is so gigantic, the workers ride on a bicycle to go from one place to another. Walking would probably take too long. I mean, I’ve seen nobody walking there.
The production stages shown during the tour included the pressing plant, the body construction and the quality control. During the first stage, you could experience how raw pieces of metal are being pressed in a huge pressing machine into desirable shapes necessary to make a car’s body. During the body construction stage, the highly intelligent (or should I say intelligently programmed) Kuka robots work in perfect harmony together to weld the car’s body, which can then be painted to the customer’s specification.
During the final stage of quality control, the car will go through a manual check by the plant worker will examine the vehicle on any flaws and issues. This includes both the visual check of the vehicle as well as its first start-up, where the car will drive for the first time on its own four wheels to get the brakes and alignment checked. If the car passes all the requirements, then it’s ready to roll off the production line and move to its customer. And those can be anywhere in the world! The quality control line has VW Golfs and Tiguans with left-hand drive or right-hand drive steering wheels as well as those going to the United States. Pretty exciting stuff and the question that I had in mind was: Will they ever see each other again?
With that, the tour was coming to its end. The Golfbahn finally arrived back at the start and the shuttle bus escorted our tourist group out of the factory premises back to the parking lot, where the tour started. However, this is certainly not the end of my visit to the Autostadt (Automobile City), as it has more to offer. This comes next.
After The Tour
The area of the factory is huge and has pavilions, where VW’s subsidiary companies each have their own place and exhibit the latest and greatest technological achievements as well as vehicles to try and seat in.
Generally speaking, it has even more attractions than that, but I was only interested in the brand related pavilions and what they had on the inside. All of them are situated close to each other so walking from one pavilion to another is not tiresome at all. The only pavilion that I didn’t visit, is the one dedicated to the Czech brand Skoda, as I’m not a huge enthusiast of the brand.
To get there, you have to buy a separate ticket first. The ticket that you used for the factory tour will not be valid to enter the pavilions. So keep that in mind.
Porsche Pavilion
Entering this circular-shaped pavilion, you descend on a curved staircase to the only hall. Here, you can see three cars on display from Porsche’s current line-up. In my case, these were the Cayenne Turbo (GT-Pack), the Taycan as well as the 911 Targa GTS. The last one had a 7-speed manual and what an amazing shifting manual that was!
Behind the current, real-size models, you get to see all current and past generations of Porsches driving down a sloped, curved road. The older the model, the further back it is located. The whole concept creates a feeling of cascade and is really fun to look at.
If you want to take a seat in any of the cars on display, you can ask one of the friendly employees to open the vehicle for you. It’s always a great experience to put your hand on that perfectly finished leather steering wheel and imagine how you drive down a mountain road in an open top 911.
Volkswagen Pavilion
Next, I visited the VW pavilion. To be more specific, there are two of them One for the development and one for production. I was in the latter.
Four current vehicles were on display at the time of my visit: The Tiguan, the facelifted Golf 8, the new Passat and the brand-new I.D.7 tourer.
Audi Pavilion
This is by far the most advanced looking and feeling of them all. My personal feeling when I entered the building was: Wow, am I in the year 2050? This is how futuristic and sci-fi the theme of the pavilion is.
Inside, you will find the prototype of the A6 e-tron as well as the current models like the A8, the RS e-tron GT or the Q4.
The other thing that was fun to play with, were the LED rear-light assemblies on the display. Press any of the buttons and the lights will change their look. Impressive!
That was the last one I visited. Next stop: The Museum.
Zeithaus (The Museum)
This is the one that you certainly should not miss. Because this is where the best of the best, the crème de la crème, of the automotive industry comes together. Tell me another place where you can see, in flesh, the legendary Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantique? It’s a repica, but a very good one. I mean, with just 4 ever being made and only 3 left, chances are it’s not that often. But even less “expensive” cars are still very impressive.
My personal favourites were the 1959 Eldorado or the rare, but very unique Cisitalia. Another favourite: The W12 Golf mk V. Such a monster!
What a collection and what a joy to see them all under the same roof. From American to European cars, there are many stunning pieces of art on wheels for you to look.
Conclusion
All in all, my visit to Wolfsburg including the VW factory tour was great. I’ve seen and experienced many interesting things and couldn’t be happier as a car enthusiast that I am. No matter if you watch a new car being born at the factory or taking a stroll through the Zeithaus or the brand pavilions, it feels your heart with pure joy to see all the automotive beauty being displayed at this amazing place.
Would I come back again? Absolutely!
Until then, long live the German car industry.