The Volkswagen Autostadt site in Wolfsburg, Germany, features two fully
glazed, galvanised steel frame car towers (or silos) that store up to 800
newly built production cars awaiting delivery to their new owners.

Cars arrive underground on pallets direct from the adjacent production plant
and are automatically loaded into their storage bay using a robotically
controlled elevator mechanism. The same mechanisms later unload and deliver
the car to the customer centre ready for the customer to drive away, with
zero miles on the clock.

This is a 26000-part LEGO model based on one of the Autostadt towers. I
considered building a true microscale version of both towers complete with
surrounding landscaping, and I may still do that one day, but for now I was
more tempted to go for this larger version with proper cars and functional
elevator.

The real towers each hold up to 400 cars - 20 floors of 20 - although the
visitor area seems to consume some spaces so I'm not quite sure if the 400
include the ones on the elevator and production pallet. The LEGO model
stores up to 193 cars with 12 floors of 16 (minus 1 for entrance, plus 2 on
the elevator). It can take 4 and 5-wide cars up to a length of 11.5 studs,
although 1st floor storage can extend that a little to around 14 studs long.

Since I'm building only the tower and not the whole production plant and
underground pallet rail delivery system I chose to make the standalone model
a little more playable and presentable by swapping the visitor entrance for
a drive-in entrance at the front of the model.

Control wheels on either side of the model are used to elevate and rotate
the elevator platform to any of the 191 storage bays or main entrance.

  - 12 Floors, 16 Cars Per Floor
  - 193 Cars
  - 26000 Total Parts
  - 9700 Car Parts
  - 1500 Transparent Parts
  - Base 619mm x 781mm (78x99)
  - Height 802mm (101)
  - Tower Diameter 507mm (64)
  - Most Used Part: 2x2 Tile (4362 of)
  - Built with LDraw (MLCad & POV-Ray)

The real Autostadt:

  http://www.autostadt.de/en/explore-the-autostadt/car-towers/
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M213o0XRho

This LEGO model is also available at the following links
complete with more detailed individual image descriptions.

  https://www.flickr.com/photos/71148741@N05/sets/72157646497811017/
  http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/395900
  http://equinoxe.byethost16.com/lego/autostadt/