A new journey through time launches at the Porsche Museum

Ferdinand Porsche was fascinated by electricity, even as a teenager. As early as 1893, he installed an electric lighting system in his parents’ house. In the same year, shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he joined Vienna-based electrical engineering company, Vereinigte Elektrizitäts-AG Béla Egger, initially as a mechanic, but after four years, he progressed to become head of the company’s testing department. During this time, he experimented with novel designs for the ‘horseless carriage’.

The first vehicles Porsche designed featured electric drives and, in 1898, his work resulted in creation of the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton. The vehicle was powered by an octagonal electric motor and, with three to five horsepower, it reached a top speed of 25km/h. Take that, Taycan! Visitors to the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen have always been able to immerse themselves in the manufacturer’s bulging back catalogue of race and road cars. Now, there’s a futuristic new display right from the moment you enter the distinctively designed venue: the highly technically complex Future Heritage Portal puts the spotlight on the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton, the oldest surviving design on which Ferdinand Porsche worked and one of the most important assets in the company’s collection.

THE INSTALLATION HAS BEEN DESIGNED TO ENSURE IT CAN BE SEEN FROM EVERY CORNER

After more than a year of research, planning and execution, the extraordinary vehicle has been given fitting status as the Porsche Museum’s permanent opening exhibit. With front-axle steering, the technologically advanced vehicle drove through the streets of Vienna 123 years ago. Today, it stands on a pedestal approximately five metres in diameter in the very museum carrying the Porsche family name.

The design of the exhibition stand on which the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton sits creates an illusion by ‘infinity mirror’, an effect produced by a combination of LED technology, specially manufactured mirror discs and content displayed in 3D. The result, which Porsche describes as “the vehicle appearing to travel from the past into the present”, projects infinite ‘depth’, encouraging Porsche Museum visitors to explore the display time and again from different angles. There’s also a holographic element to proceedings, presenting a futuristic style of storytelling, which explores origins of the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton and its significance in Porsche’s DNA, something the company has been keen to shout about following launch of the Mission E concept, the fully electric Taycan production car and, more recently, the Mission R electric race car concept.

The Future Heritage Portal provides visitors to the Porsche Museum with an abundance of content through a recently commissioned film, which accompanies them throughout the entire exhibition — the installation has been carefully designed to ensure it can be seen from almost every corner of the building’s interior. The film, comprising four chapters merging into one another, brings the viewer closer to over 120 years of Porsche history and allows them to jump from chapter to chapter at any given time. All the action is accompanied by specially composed ambient sounds, referencing the noise of the all-electric Porsche models in operation.

“You really need to view the installation from different angles in order to fully appreciate the ‘infinity mirror’,” recommends exhibition curator, Iris Haker, before going on to tell us the Future Heritage Portal completes the upgrade of Prologue, the celebrated introductory section to the Porsche Museum’s permanent exhibition. “We’ve created even more wow factor,” she adds. “Every visitor is drawn into Porsche’s electric beginnings thanks to special technology never previously seen in this context.”