6. May 2025
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Museums & Exhibitions

Motorworld Cologne – Rheinland & Michael Schumacher Private Collection

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland

free entry
Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland
4.5

Rating

 4.5/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Lovely location at Cologne's historic airport
  • Impressing displays of cars in storage and for sale
  • Nice recreational value

The 2025 Rock of Ages shows in Cologne (I visited all of them…) gave me the opportunity to have a closer look at one of the most interesting places in the outskirts of my home town. Motorworld Cologne (or Motorworld Köln-Rheinland is in fact a place, which in fact (from a visitors perspective) features several quite different attractions in one. First of all, it is the historic Cologne airport. Secondly, it is a place where you can buy, storage, sell and maintain (typically: posh or historic) cars. And finally, it also hosts the Michael Schumacher Private Collection, honoring likely the best Germans ever in Formula One racing.

Despite this sounds a bit of difficult to put everything in one post, I give it a try. Here is my post about this place.

 

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland – Location & Access

Motorworld Köln-Rheinland is located in the Northwest of Cologne, in the borough of Ossendorf. It is located close to the A1 and A57 motorway. The area is likely most well-known for its IKEA furniture store. Thus, the closest tram station is also named IKEA Am Butzweilerhof, with frequent, direct connections to Cologne Main Station (line 5). Of course, many visitors come by car. There are quite some parking capacities. Parking fee is up to 14 EUR per day.

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland is open daily. The main hall is open from 7:30 to 22:00 from Monday to Saturday and 10:00 to 22:00 on Sundays. The opening times of the vendors, restaurants and different services may differ. This includes the two souvenir stores. In general, visiting the place is free. Explicitly, this includes the Michael Schumacher Private Collection. Of course, some attractions on site require an admission. There are also several special events during the year, some might require an admission.

 

Historic Airport Cologne-Butzweilerhof

It does not make sense to introduce you to Motorworld in Cologne without introducing you to the historic airport. Opened in 1911, it was the first civil airport of the city. While commercial aviation left the airport in 1957 (in favor of today’s Cologne-Bonn Airport (CGN), it was used for amateur and sports pilots until 1980. Especially the historic terminal building on the Southwest end of the site still reminds of that. The major parking lot on the North is the former apron area. As a passenger, you entered the airport from the South. This part of the former airport (as well as some others) are surprisingly well preserved and can be visited by guided tours. The former reception and check-in area can also be used for events like weddings.

Some on site remind of the former usage of that area as well. The most striking one is the Fokker F-27 in the West of the Motorworld parking lot.

 

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland – Key Facilities

The key business of Motorworld are cars, though. The place is driven to store, maintain and sell cars. Typically, they are in the very high price range. Thus, while the key audience visits Motorworld in order to spend quite a bunch of money, the majority of visitors rather uses it as a car museum. Porsche, Ferrari and other luxury cars – you very likely run into them. The most striking and catching element of the large venue architecture are the glass garage boxes. As said, I visited the place during a musical show, so that the setting might be slightly adopted compared to when you visit it.

A couple of additional halls belong to the grounds of Motorworld. One of them is also used to store and display cars. Obviously, you cannot touch or enter any of these cars. They are either the property of private owners or of car trading companies located on the premises. Motorworld also features the V8 Hotel West of the two exhibition halls. One of the unique features there is that you can book a hotel room, which allows you to park your car right inside of it.

 

Michael Schumacher Private Collection

Even though Michael Schumacher’s racing career ended in 2012 and his 2013 skiing accident completely took him out of the public, he is still extremely popular. Thus, it is not that surprising that the Michael Schumacher Private Collection is a key attraction at Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland. The exhibits have been provided by the Schumacher family to this place and located in the upper gallery of the main exhibition hall. The collection is really impressing. It contains numerous chassis of Schumacher’s Formula One career, but also a racing kart or a Fiat 500 he drove or owned.

However, the Private Collection is not only about cars. There is a wide range of memorabilia, starting from racing overalls, gloves and helmets to medals, cups and also photo memories illustrating the career of the German racing legend. There are also some displays showing video snippets of his most successful moments. None of them is interactive. For obvious reasons, the items are either in glass boxes or at least protected and cannot be touched in any way.

 

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland – Services & Recreation

As said, the main business of Motorworld is to store and maintain cars. The majority of companies, who have an office in one of the buildings are either car traders or maintenance companies. However, there are also some more or less related businesses, like insurance companies. Some are not related to cars at all, e.g. a company providing service robots.

There are also a couple of recreational services which are attracting visitors. First of all, there are two memorabilia stores. One of them is the Michael Schumacher Official Shop. Nowadays, it also sells merchandise of his son Mick. Both of them are really worth a visit. One large hall is used for a Mario Kart-alike battle kart ground. This was used for Rock of Ages during my visit, i.e. there was no racing. Another car racing-related activity is a company who provide high-class car race simulators. Last, but not least, Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland is also popular for its several restaurants. All of them also have outdoor seating, so that especially in summer people love to hang out at the former airport ground.

 

Motorworld Köln-Rheinland as a Venue

While the 2024 Rock of Ages shows took place in the Tanzbrunnen in Deutz, close to the trade fair, the tour moved to the Motorworld in 2025. Having seen all Cologne shows in both years, I felt that Motorworld was a definite upgrade. The people were very relaxed, the organization was very good and drink and snack prices were much more in a reasonable range. For the musical events, you could buy a reduced fare parking ticket (5 Euro) as well, which was very handy compared to the ridiculous prices the year before.

 

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland – My View

Motorworld Cologne-Rheinland comes with a very interesting concept. It is really nice to hang out there and looking at all the cars which you likely will never be able to afford. The price tags somehow lead to a certain thrill, as you inevitably think about whether you might buy one or not. The lovely location with the historic airport and the nice range of (reasonably priced) restaurants turns it into a really nice place to hang out there. However, it is not necessarily a place for young kids as the high value of the cars in there obviously limits the possibility to walk or run around the buildings. Additionally, there is obviously car traffic on the premises.

 

Travel Postings About Cologne

Here are all my travel postings related to Cologne:

 

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