Museum vehicle manager offers peek behind the scenes
Most of you will have seen Porsche’s recent Heist short film, set at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart and played during the half-time show at last month’s dramatic Super Bowl standoff between Kansas City Chiefs and the mighty San Francisco 49ers. If you haven’t yet seen this feast for the eyes, fire up YouTube with immediate effect and marvel at the work of what ended up being more than 150 people.
Shooting took place in and around Porsche’s home in Zuffenhausen, Germany, at the end of November 2019. It’s the second time in the company’s history that it has produced a commercial for the Super Bowl half-time show. Taking centre stage is the all-new fully electric Taycan, which finds itself engaged in a fast-paced chase with nine of its most legendary stablemates. Visitors to the Porsche Museum will recognise some of the cars as site exhibits, though some were pulled directly from the collection’s vaults, which meant preparation and handling of the rare and valuable cars during filming was a key part of the project.
“We have a huge amount of experience preparing historic vehicles for all kinds of operations, but driving a 917 through the centre of Stuttgart, at night, was a first even for us,” explains Alexander Klein, Head of Vehicle Management and Heritage Experience at the Porsche Museum. “When we travelled to one of our filming locations in the Black Forest, the roads were covered in snow and stayed that way until the evening before the shoot. Fortunately, we took different tyre profiles and compounds with us, which proved necessary for the Porsche race cars we were filming. The whole experience was fantastic fun.” He confirms Porsche and its production crew refrained from making any “technical changes” to the cars they were making use of.
After the opening scenes inside the Porsche Museum, viewers see a team of precision drivers steer the pretty Porsches (ranging from a Porsche-Diesel tractor to a Taycan) around the famous Porsche roundabout in Zuffenhausen and along the inner city streets of Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Heppenheim and over the Schwarzenbachtalsperre dam. One of the talented drivers, Harald Müller, held the World Record for drifting, while Porsche factory driver, Lars Kern, was behind the wheel of the iconic 917 K.
The director was Wayne McClammy, who is internationally renowned for his commercials. At points during the shoot he was using four cameras at the same time, and a Cayenne was fitted with a roof-mounted camera crane known as a Russian Arm. A pair of drones — including one with a top speed of 99mph — picked up the aerial shots.
