The famous Antennae galaxies are the best-studied nearby merger of two gas-rich spirals, providing an ideal laboratory to study interaction-driven starbursts. In the Antennae, the dominant star formation sites are found in extra-nuclear arc-like disk features and a dusty overlap region. Here I discuss results from the first high-resolution merger simulations which match both the global morphology and kinematics as well as the distribution and strength of the central star formation in the Antennae. We find that the overlap starburst develops only for a very short time (~10 Myr) induced by the 2nd pericenter. This indicates that we observe the Antennae in a special phase of their evolution and that they will merge soon within the next 50 Myrs. Our model is a major step towards a full understanding of the Antennae and merger-driven starbursts in general. Finally, I also review the properties of the final merger remnant of the system and show that its kinematic and photometric properties will be in accord with a typical present-day fast-rotating extra light elliptical if evolved (passively) over ~3 , Gyr from now on.

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