I met charlie

You're probably wondering "Who's Charlie?". Well, Charlie is the one robot used on the Porsche 911 production line. He/It is the robot that installs the front and rear windows on the cars. Although all the rest of the 911 is hand-built, this was the only area they used a robot. But, to back up a bit...

We started the morning at the Porsche Museum. Its hard to find due to the small size and location. After about 10 extra minutes of wandering around we did find the right place. Our tour group had 12 people in it, all first time visitors to the factory. We first went to see the 911 assembly line. From the start I was very impressed with the car's construction. The line is just so cool. There are lots of 'robots' in use for moving the car pieces around, and even some automated ones running parts around the floor, but most are just for moving or manipulating the body. Each station that the car goes to has a 'cart' following the car. That car contains the parts to be installed at the station. The first one we saw was the dashboard assembly area. Most of the dashes were standard but I did see one with some carbon fiber bits on the cart. We walked the rest of the assembly line and then headed over to the engine building area. Although Cayennes and Boxsters are build at separate factories, their engines are all built in Stuttgart. We got to see them putting together engines of all types. Then we went over to the upholstery section to see how they do their interior leather. Interestingly, they do not do seat upholstery in house. The seats are received from an outside company with the same leather colors. Oh, and if you're ever on the tour. Don't touch the leather. I received a slight reprimand for that :)

We wrapped up the tour with a short Q&A session and then that was it. I could very easily have spent another couple hours at the factory just watching the different stations and the assembly of the cars. I found it just fascinating.

After the tour we headed back to the hotel to pack up. My brother was tired so he went for a nap while my dad & I went out to get lunch. We found some interesting sandwiches along a mall-type area. First though we just got some drinks and pomme frites and people watched. Then we bought a couple sandwiches and walked back to the hotel. After lunch we all packed up and headed to the airport early. We were worried about weights and extra fees on the bags but we got through with no issues.