If Top Gear did lock-up garages…

No poet or writer ever posited that Nirvana was located in a converted tram shed in a post-industrial part of West Berlin, but trust me, it’s there. This is Meilenwerk. You won’t stumble upon it unless you area particularly clued-up automotive tourist, so consider this a TopGear  top tip: if you’re in Berlin for the weekend, for God’s sake, don’t miss this place. It will make your eyeballs explode and your heart pump so fast it’ll hurt your ribs. It might also severely dent your wallet, but it’ll be worth it.

Words: Jason Barlow
Photography: Ripley & Ripley

This feature was originally published in the May issue of Top Gear magazine

So what is this auto-pleasuredome? A garage, basically. Possibly a museum. Or indeed both. There's a major car dealership in there - Ferrari/Maserati's Berlin operation - and, rather curiously, a Riva boat dealer. There are shops specialising in all sorts of mouth-watering automotive memorabilia, classic car dealers with stuff for sale that you will almost certainly never have seen in the flesh before, and workshops dedicated to servicing and maintaining German, Italian, French and British cars. There's an in-house car rental company whose main investor is, apparently, a member of leading German industrial rock outfit Rammstein, with an inventory that's about as eccentric as the band's back catalogue (more of which later - the cars, that is... not Rammstein). There's even a fabulous bistro and restaurant whose kitchen is run by chefs with Michelin-starred experience. It's a hell of a day out, in other words.

The first Meilenwerk [Mile Works] opened in 2004 and, like all great ideas, is fundamentally pretty simple. Space for parking is at a premium in most big cities, which is why if you wander into any NCP or posh hotel car park in, say, London, there's usually something tasty in the shadows. Personally, I'd be none too happy to leave my Enzo vulnerable to passing anarchists or negligent parkers, never mind the trouser-dropping fees these concrete monoliths charge for the privilege.

Which is where Meilenwerk comes in. Book a space in here - for a pretty reasonable €150 a month - and your car won't just be safe, it'll be on display in a glass box, mounted on a spectacular dual level along with hundreds of others. Access to it is available 24/7, the place is awash with CCTV and the entire building is temperature-controlled to maintain the perfect climatic conditions for its valuable inhabitants.

It gets better, though. Meilenwerk's manager, Yvo Konzag, runs the place very democratically. Anyone can visit, Monday to Sunday, 9 to 5pm. It's free to enter. But, better still, rather than adhering to some dubious auto-apartheid, he is more interested in housing interesting cars than (literally) showcasing the latest big or most valuable thing. "The idea for Meilenwerk came from a German property developer with a passion for classic cars. We're interested in all sorts of cars, not just exotica. The location was found by pure coincidence, and we always try to find an historic building, somewhere of real substance" says Yvo.

Our guide for the day is car designer and entrepreneur Chris Hrabalek, who also happens to be the guy who masterminded the new Stratos we drove earlier this year. Chris runs his busy design consultancy from an office in Meilenwerk, but also keeps some of his cars here. A lifetime's judicious buying and selling has netted him a truly remarkable collection. The pinky-red Stratos - the original Bertone concept - and turbocharged Group 5 Stratos racer are both his, and two of his Bugatti EB110s (he has more) are also stored here.

"Car museums are usually dead," Chris says. "They're an outdated concept. They also tend to be located outside the city centre. This is a living place - cars are coming and going. I guarantee you that if you came back here next week, 20 per cent of the cars on display would be different. There's action. People have their cars serviced here. And cars are always being sold, so there's a fascinating turnover."

He's not kidding. The moment you pass through the wrought-iron gates and into the outdoor car park, you know something unusually good is about to happen. It's quirky, too, so if you have, let's just say, rather Catholic tastes or are frankly plain weird, then prepare yourself. I'm afraid I come over all unnecessary when I spot a late-Sixties Ford Consul coupe, parked next to one of those glorious corrugated Citroen H vans. Tucked up in the far corner is a gently mouldering Eighties Citroen CX GTi, a Fifties DKW (one of the precursors to Audi, and one of the four rings of the Audi badge) and, best of all, an extremely rare but very tidy-looking mid-Fifties Lancia Flaminia Coupe (for sale at €7,800, might need a bit of work.)

That's just the car park. Inside? Paradise. A veritable treasure trove. There's a double-decked row of glass boxes stretching the entire length of the building (itself a marvellous piece of architecture, and a recipient of some heritage money that part-funded its restoration). The first row contained an Iso Grifo, a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Jaguar XK140 convertible, a Sixties Corvette Stingray, a Ferrari F355, a Maserati Bora, a Ferrari 599 GTO, a Mercedes 170S, a pair of Mercedes 300SL roadsters and a 300SL Gullwing, a Maserati Mexico and a Ferrari Enzo. All together, all immaculate. In a row.

Opposite that little lot, as you walk in, is a smattering of the Rammstein rental fleet. Various Porsches and Mercedes SLs are available, but it's the odd stuff that really catches the eye. I'd never previously given much thought to driving round Berlin in a Citroen Mehari, AMC Pacer, New York Checker cab, Glas Goggomobil, Tatra 603 or, and I loved this, Sixties Cold War Soviet-era Tschaika M13 limo. But you can. Dirk Salomon, Rammstein business partner and a giant bear of a man, tells us we really should have booked ahead, and his dog growls at us, but he still lets us borrow one of his cars for a quick photo op. It's a gold Chevy Suburban, a car that takes considerable chutzpah to drive around Berlin. Or indeed anywhere outside Asswipe, Idaho.

The car dealers inside have an equally eclectic selection of stock. There's a sumptuous Fifties Bentley R-Type Continental with seats trimmed in alligator hide (a cool half a mil). Next to that is a Ferrari 400 (yours for €38,900). A late-Seventies Aston Martin Vantage is parked behind a shooting brake version of the über-wedge Seventies Aston Lagonda (ever seen one of those? Me neither). Elsewhere, I spot a De Tomaso Pantera, a Jaguar XJ 220, a '73 Porsche 911 RS, a Ferrari BB 512, Daytona and 575 Superamerica and countless covetable Mercedeses. For a car lover of a certain vintage, it's like being stuck inside a giant box of Top Trumps. 

Then we take a tour of the specialists on the opposite side of the building. Chris says that they really do adhere to the well-worn national stereotypes (he's a well-travelled Austrian, so he can get away with it), and Mauro, who runs the Italian workshop, immediately does his bit by having a picture of Sophia Loren on the wall and saying: "When I was younger, if a woman came to me for a clutch change, I would make love to them rather than accept any payment." There's a Sixties Giulia saloon with Carabinieri decals over it in his shop and a stunning Maserati 5000 GT Allemano once owned by Fifties Hollywood legend Stewart Granger. These are not things you see every day.

As well as Berlin, you'll find two other outposts: one in Stuttgart, the other in Dusseldorf. Visit, if you get the chance. And if you happen to be a car-loving property developer with a big vacant warehouse in the middle of a major British city, can we have one, please? Seriously. We'd like it very much.