Honey, I Shrunk the Porsche

At the heart of Hamburg’s historic Speicherstadt district lies ‘Miniatur Wunderland’, the world’s largest model museum. Inside, celebrated cities from across the globe are recreated in 1:87 scale, creating a mesmerising miniaturised universe that has been drawing crowds for twenty years. One such city is Monaco, famous for its glamourous Riviera frontage and, of course, its prestigious, demanding street circuit.

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“This is where the Porsche 99X Electric reaches its top speed,” says Gerrit Braun, stretching his arm out over Monaco harbour and pointing to the long straight line bordered by high-rises and spectators crowded onto balconies. Braun and his team at Miniatur Wunderland team know this circuit like the back of their hands, having faithfully reproduced it over several torturous years. “We’ve been working on the motorsport project since 2015,” he admits, “and it’s our biggest challenge to date.”

The 53-year-old and his twin brother Frederik founded Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg’s Speicherstadt in 2000. The exhibition space now measures more than 10,000 square meters and, with around 1.4 million visitors a year, is one of the most popular attractions in Germany. Within, wide-eyed adults and children alike can marvel at some 9,250 cars, 269,000 figures, 15,715 meters of track, 1,040 trains, 4,340 buildings and 130,000 trees. More than 300 employees have spent around one million hours creating an accessible microcosm of cities and landscapes, trains, ships and airplanes, much of which is in constant motion. Many of the model cars dotted around the streets are Porsches, the most recent of which is the 99X Electric, taking up residence on the narrow streets of Monaco.

The redesigned principality will officially open in the first half of 2022 with its primary focus now being the legendary Monaco Grand Prix course. “We’ll alternate between Formula 1 and Formula E races,” explains Braun. “Everything true to the original, with parade lap, safety car, starting grid – and then action!”

A scenario this realistic has never been built before and everything had to be created from scratch, right down to the software responsible for controlling 20 race cars. The system responds within 50 milliseconds to the manoeuvres of other racers, meaning each race is different, with real battles for position and even the occasional crash. “Of course, we want to avoid that if at all possible,” says Braun, “because then the safety car has to come out and a couple of people are kept busy for some time.”

The 21-metre course through miniature Monaco is made up of 24 special circuit boards with a total of 1,400 magnetic field sectors, each of which is controlled separately and generates its own magnetic field. The cars were created using 3D printers and sheets of plastic just 0.03mm thick. Each chassis has been painted multiple times and precisely reproduced down to the smallest sponsor decal, while the underbody conceals a Halbach array, a diamond-shaped panel that serves as the counterpart to the magnetic fields along the course.

While the race simulations are already running in the computer, Braun still has to teach the cars to accelerate at just the right moment. “The software always wants to maintain the lead, but sometimes you just need to slow down during a race. Programming all that is a complicated process.”

If everything goes according to plan, the miniature car races will be the Hamburg team’s next global milestone in the field of model building. “The crowning achievement of all our efforts,” suggests Braun. “Even more complex than the airport with its airplanes taking off and landing, which was commissioned in 2011.” Small wonder then that the realisation of a working race track has been six years in the making. As Braun sums it up: “We may be able to shrink down objects, but we can’t shrink down time.”